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Copyright N°_ Pi u 


COPHRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






















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BUZ AND FURY 


By 

WARRINGTON DAWSON 
Author of “The Gift of Paul Clermont,” 
etc. 


“I am His Highness’s dog at Kew — 
Pray tell me, Sir—whose dog are you?” 



The Honest Truth Publishing Co. 
333 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois 







Copyright 

In United States of America and Great Britain by 
Warrington Dawson. 


9 

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

80 



DEC - 5 ?3 


©ciucoeae 

"Vto I 


Raymond and George 











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CONTENTS 


Foreword Page 

Something About it All. 7 

Chapters 

I The City of Refuge. 13 

II At the Rat-Wall. 23 

III The Moonlight Dreams.... 35 

IV Fury’s Secret . 49 

V A Cat and a Fig Tree. 63 

VI Buz is Missing. 75 

VII Fury Climbs the Fence... 85 

VIII The Dog Catcher. 97 

IX In the Pound. Ill 

X Hanged on the Fence. 123 

XI Together Again. 135 

XII Buz’s Kingdom. 149 

XIII Miss Penelope Parateyer.. 159 

XIV A “Quiet” Day. 173 

XV The Pig Hunt. 183 

XVI Fury is Missing. 199 

XVII The Trial . 211 






























«♦ 




SOMETHING ABOUT IT ALL 

Two of the brightest and most de¬ 
lightful brothers I ever knew asked me 
to write a book specially for them— 
“Something all new,” they said, “not 
like anything we ever read before.” 

That was a tall order. They had had 
pretty much every boy’s book ever 
written that was worth reading, and 
they had dipped into many things for 
grown-ups. They had got to be so very 
particular that for them whatever 
wasn’t quite right was—well—alto¬ 
gether wrong. I knew, because I’d 
spent many an hour reading aloud to 
them. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, boys,” I 
said. “I’m not sure I can write a book 
you’ll think new, or even a book you 
will like. But I once had as friends a 
boy and a dog who might interest you, 
and I’ll begin to write their story for 
you. I’ll write it a chapter at a time, 
and you will come to lunch with Buz 
and Fury and me each time so I may 


8 


Buz and Fury 


read the chapter to you. Whenever you 
say ‘Nuff!’ we shall snuff it out right 
there.’ ’ 

I wrote, and I read, and—the book 
stopped because family plans compelled 
the boys to put the entire Atlantic 
Ocean between us for the summer. Not 
long before the end, Raymond spoke up 
and said gravely but with glowing eyes: 
“I liked your story at the start, but 
I’m glad to be able to tell you it’s 
getting better and better.” George 
just smiled—but nobody was ever able 
to resist George’s smile. 

A great New York publisher who saw 
the book did not share their sentiments. 

“I can’t put this on my list,” he told 
me. “It’s written to young people.” 

“Of course,” I answered. “Other¬ 
wise there would have been no reason 
for writing it at all.” 

He shook his head: 

“For a book to sell, it must be ad¬ 
dressed to grown people even when 
labelled for children. Remember that 
parents do the choosing, and they buy 
the sort of thing they are accustomed 


Buz and Fury 


9 


to believing children ought to like. 
What young people really like or don’t 
like has no importance at all.” 

There was a time when light came 
out of the East; but in this instance it 
would seem to have waited to come 
from the West. Here’s a Chicago pub¬ 
lisher whose ethics are so honest that 
he thinks people of all ages have the 
right to choose what they like among 
books, unrestricted by commercial con¬ 
siderations alone. He even believes he 
knows plenty of people, not only young 
but also older, who will like this book 
for the reasons that Raymond and 
George did—provided they are given a 
chance to see it. 

And now I have some words to say 
about Fury. 

I fear I shall scarcely be credited, 
when I say that Fury was a dog I 
really knew. 

Fury was phenomenal, I am prepared 
to admit. But are there not phenome¬ 
nal men and women, otherwise called 
geniuses? Is there any reason why 
genius should not exist among dogs? 


10 


Buz and Fury 


If ever a dog had a finely balanced 
intellect, it was Fnry. But there were 
certainly times when more than intel¬ 
ligence shone in his eyes. Nor do I 
believe it was a light reflected from my 
eyes, as I have heard suggested. Be¬ 
cause Fury, gazing intently at me, often 
expressed things I had not dreamed of 
until he evoked them. 

Helped by such experiences, I tried 
to read in Fury’s thoughts when pre¬ 
senting certain episodes. But the 
liberty I took wasn’t much greater than 
when I was interpreting the views of 
any other character. That’s imagina¬ 
tion, if you wish. But it’s a quality 
distinguishing human beings not from 
animals but above such animals as have 
it: and I assert that the facts I give 
about Fury are true. 

There are in his story one or two 
incidents which I regret. But then, you 
see, I also regretted them in his life. 
That deplorable affair of the pigs is an 
undeniable spot upon Fury’s character. 
Yet it throws a high-light upon the law 


Buz and Fury 


11 


of temperamental throw-backs to racial 
habits. 

Some details will seem to be behind 
the times. The modes of locomotion 
and communication were less perfect 
then than in our present year of grace. 
I might easily enough have retouched 
all that. But I wanted Fury’s history 
to remain true. And it is some years, 
now, since Fury was laid to rest under 
the great trees in the garden of the 
master whom he loved so well, and who 
to this day thinks of him often and with 
a deep, unchanging affection. 

I ask myself, indeed, the question: if 
Fury had lived in this very up-to-date, 
get-it-quick-or-drop-it period of ours, 
would he have had time or opportunity 
to be a genius among dogs? Somehow, 
I doubt it. 


May, 1923. 


Warrington Dawson. 


\ 




CHAPTER I 
The City of Refuge 

From the City of Refuge, Fury 
looked out on the big and beautiful 
world; and he smiled. It was the con¬ 
fidential sort of smile which waits for 
encouragement before getting any 
broader. There was something a bit 
plaintive about it, and at the same time 
something not very far from impudent. 
The truth is, Fury didn’t smile because 
he was happy. He smiled because he 
was safe and wanted to pretend he was 
happy. 

If it had not been for the City of 
Refuge, the world wouldn’t have looked 
beautiful to-day, nor would it have been 
nearly big enough for purposes of run¬ 
ning. Buz stood in the doorway, almost 
within reach, watching angrily. That 
was why Fury felt safe without being 
happy. Sooner or later, he would have 
to leave the City of Refuge. And who 
could guess what might happen then? 


14 


Buz and Fury 


Fury thought about this, though he 
didn't say anything. Perhaps one rea¬ 
son for his silence was that he didn’t 
trust Buz to agree with his point of 
view; and he was too well-behaved to 
talk to himself. When they wanted to 
understand each other, they didn’t need 
words. There had been this very City 
of Refuge, for instance. 

Really, it was an old box, half-filled 
with hay, left in a corner of the car¬ 
riage-house. 

A couple of days before, Fury had 
been naughty, and Buz was going to 
punish him, and he had run to the box 
and jumped in just for the sake of 
gaining time. Buz had come up and 
peeped over the edge, and had spoken 
in a way which sounded new, and then 
had gone out again. 

“Splendid!” Fury had thought. 
“He’s forgotten.” 

Yet when Fury had skipped gaily out 
into the garden, supposing his troubles 
ended, Buz had punished him all the 
same. 

So that box had some mysterious 


Buz and Fury 


15 


property about it which protected you 
only while you were there. 

What helped Buz and Fury to under¬ 
stand each other, probably, was that in 
appearance they had some things which 
were just the same, though they had 
some things which were different. 

Both had hair that couldn’t be 
parted; but Fury’s was white and made 
short so it never would grow long, while 
Buz’s was dark and made long so it 
was cut ever so often to keep it ever 
so short. 

Both had eyes that were very large 
and very brown and very bright, but 
Buz’s were larger than Fury’s, and 
Fury’s were browner than Buz’s. 

Both had a pair of lips rather large 
for their owner’s size, but Buz’s were 
full and red and did quite a lot of 
work for him, while Fury’s were thin 
and black and wouldn’t have been of 
much use if he hadn’t had an ex¬ 
ceptionally long, limber tongue. 

Both had teeth that were nice and 
white and even, but Buz cleaned his 
and Fury never could be induced to 


16 


Buz and Fury 


trouble about his; which wasn't fair 
because Fury's stayed smooth and 
presentable all by themselves, and 
Buz's would give him away if he acci¬ 
dentally forgot there was such a thing 
as a tooth-brush, on mornings of un¬ 
usual hurry when something was 
wrong with all the clocks in the house. 

Both, of course, had a head, and a 
body, and four limbs. And it would 
never do to forget a nose and two ears. 
But the head, body, four limbs, nose, 
and two ears of Buz weren't to the 
slightest degree like the head, body, 
four limbs, nose, and two ears of Fury. 

The biggest difference was that Fury 
had a tail and Buz hadn't. Oh, it 
wasn't so very much of a tail. It was 
such a little one, in fact, that it was 
the very first thing you noticed when 
Fury bounced into sight, partly be¬ 
cause of its size, and partly because 
it stood up on his back like a lightning- 
rod on a cottage roof, and partly be¬ 
cause it seemed to be stuck on with a 
round black sticking-plaster at the root. 
Fury had black and tan spots on his 


Buz and Fury 


17 


head and ears too. Buz didn’t have 
any spots—except the kind which come 
off if you scrub hard enough. 

But if you think you know all about 
Fury now, you’re mistaken. He wasn’t 
merely a fox-terrier. He was an 
Australian fox-terrier, who might have 
grown up to chase buck and rabbits 
and kangaroos over the plains and into 
the bush, if it hadn’t so happened that 
his father and mother had been brought 
over the seas to America in a basket— 
or perhaps in two baskets. As for Buz, 
he had only one particular purpose as 
far as Fury knew or cared, and that 
was being Fury’s master. 

Buz and Fury may not have looked 
alike, particularly. But just at the 
moment I was speaking about, they 
wore the same sort of expression on 
their faces, as if they knew what they 
wanted and were going to get it if 
they could. Which isn’t always healthy 
for dogs, though they be good little 
dogs; nor is it for boys, either. Not 
that Fury was so very little; and not 
that Buz was so very good. 


18 


Buz and Fury 


To-day, at all events, Fury had been 
far from good. He had chewed up a 
pair of new slippers sent home for 
Buz. They were so new that they still 
had the nice white paper wrapped 
round them, tied with pretty pink 
string. Fury got the string caught in 
his claws and the paper stuck in his 
teeth before he could begin to eat 
properly. Often and often he’d tasted 
shoes, and had gnawed the toes of a 
few, and had got spanked to teach him 
better. But he hadn’t ever eaten 
slippers, and it seemed worth trying. 
He had time to wonder, now, if it had 
really been worth while. Although 
he’d finished only the top of one and 
had barely started on' the other, when 
he was interrupted by Buz, he had a 
most uncomfortable feeling inside. And 
things outside didn’t promise to be 
more cheerful, since Buz wouldn’t go 
away from the door. 

“Boys never stay still for long,” 
Fury reflected wisely. “He’ll get tired, 
by and bye, and run away. I’m per¬ 
fectly comfortable here.” 


Buz and Fury 


19 


He was not comfortable, though. 
Reaching up to look over the edge of 
the box, he nearly broke his neck; and 
the feeling inside him grew more and 
more peculiar. Moving made it worse; 
but keeping quiet didn’t make it better. 
He couldn’t help wondering if he 
mightn’t feel stronger after eating 
something nourishing. Shoe-leather 
was great fun, but beef and bones and 
potatoes were surely healthier for dogs 
who had hard work to do like running 
and jumping. All which made Fury 
think harder and harder. 

“If I wait here till he goes, it may 
be for the rest of the day. That means 
missing dinner. If I choose the beat¬ 
ing, I’ll forget about it, after a while, 
and one beating more or less won’t 
matter so much. But if I miss dinner, 
I’ll never, never, never make up for 
that, so long as I live, because I can’t 
have more than one dinner a day!” 

No. Buz did not have the vaguest 
intention of going away. While the 
name he had given to this place was 
rather long and complicated, and might 


20 


BUZ AND FUKY 


be puzzling to any one who had not 
been able to read the Bible and learn 
about Horns of the Altar and Cities of 
Befuge, yet Fury had grasped the laws 
of the game. Buz thought it fair for 
a dog to have a place to go to and be 
quite safe against teasing or punishing. 

Fury was always telling himself that 
he must behave like a big dog and not 
whimper next time he was whipped. 
But somehow, this time was always so 
very bad that he would cry out most 
dreadfully, and would do his best to 
gain just a minute or two—oh, please! 

So he knew now that he was merely 
putting off his punishment; but he 
was luckier than some boys in being 
able to do that. And he had something 
plaintive in his looks, and something 
almost impudent too, because he was 
safe for a few minutes more, or at 
least until he chose to come out—pro¬ 
vided he did without dinner. 

All of a sudden, Fury noticed a 
change in Buz. Buz was getting tired; 
he called sharply. When Fury didn’t 
move, Buz glanced over his shoulder 


Buz and Fury 


21 


towards the trees beyond the lawn, as 
if thinking*of switches. 

“He doesn’t like this,” Fury said to 
himself. “If I want my dinner, then 
the sooner I get out, the easier he’ll be 
on me.—Here goes!” 

His innocent air, as he jumped from 
the box and sidled across the floor of 
the carriage-house, might have deceived 
anybody except Buz. (I don’t like to 
believe it was because Buz had tried 
such things too.) With an air so inno¬ 
cent that Buz read a very guilty con¬ 
science underneath, Fury came out, 
wagging his absurd tail which he’d 
dropped as low as possible, considering 
how short it was. 

Buz showed that the surrender had 
soothed him. He said: 

“Come on, sir! Come on!” 

But his voice wasn’t so stern as it 
had been. 

If Buz had known it was greediness 
rather than obedience which brought 
Fury out, perhaps he would have 
spanked harder than he did. That 
would have been a pity, though, be- 


22 


Buz and Fury 


cause the one or two little slaps he 
gave on Fury’s flank were enough. 

Fury never ate shoes or slippers 
again. He learned that what had 
brought him pleasure was not the 
leather at all, but the sweet taste of 
the blacking, even if it did leave a little 
bite behind. And he could taste black¬ 
ing at any time, without risking more 
than a stuffy feeling inside, by using 
the tip of his long, limber tongue. 


CHAPTER II 
At the Rat-wall 

Fury snarled and growled in his 
sleep, and twitched his legs and tail. 
He was dreaming he’d chased a great 
horrid rat into the loose bricks of an 
old wall at the far end of the garden; 
and as long as he watched, the rat 
would hide away, and as soon as he 
started to go, the rat would show its 
nose again. It was a most unpleasant 
sort of dream, and it changed to some¬ 
thing worse. He dreamed that he 
stayed there to watch, and each time 
the rat would come out and look at him 
he would fall asleep, instead of jump¬ 
ing up as it was his duty to do. 

He made more noise and disturbance 
than he knew, whining and kicking on 
the rug at Buz’s feet while in his 
dreams he couldn’t move at all. 
Presently Buz punched him softly in 
the ribs with the toe of one shoe. (I 
believe it was the identical shoe Fury 


24 


Buz and Fury 


had tried to gnaw before having a try 
at slippers.) Buz explained to himself 
that he was considerately stopping 
Fury’s misery. But it was also true 
that Buz could do his Latin lesson bet¬ 
ter when Fury was quiet. 

This changed Fury’s dream. He 
thought a ball struck him and knocked 
him over, and then the wall turned up¬ 
side down; and half a minute later, 
only a heavy lump of sleep was left 
where Fury and the wall and the rat 
had been. 

After a short time, Fury came out 
of the lump, breathed deeply, yawned 
widely, sneezed sharply—it was a 
particularly refreshing sneeze — and 
stretched lazily. Then he raised his 
head and looked in Buz’s face. 

What he saw didn’t please him. Buz 
had his nose pointed to a book. Fury 
didn’t know that it was Caesar’s very 
interesting story of the Gallic Wars. 
Buz himself may not have known it 
was interesting, though he was work¬ 
ing at it as hard as ever he could. All 
Fury cared about, was that when Buz 


Buz and Fury 


25 


took the book with the green back and 
the red-edged leaves, there was no play¬ 
ing. That is, there wasn’t unless— 

Fury got up and slipped gently out 
of the room. Anybody who had watched 
him could have seen a naughty little 
wrinkle on the very tip end of his nose. 
But nobody was watching. 

He didn’t make a single sound, while 
he was in the hall. He picked up one 
hind leg and ran on three feet, as his 
mother had taught him that dogs of 
his race ought to do when there was no 
special hurry. He glided swiftly and 
silently, not letting his toe-nails scratch 
until he reached the verandah. Then 
he scratched briskly across the wooden 
flooring until he reached the top of the 
steps. And then he got to the bottom, 
down the fourteen steps, in what looked 
like a single jump, though he made as 
much noise as if a pound of nails had 
been flung down hard. He stopped a 
couple of seconds to twirl round in the 
tall grass, which hadn’t been cut be¬ 
cause Buz wanted to do it but was 
always too busy to begin. And then 


26 


Buz and Fury 


at last he dashed off to the wall he’d 
been dreaming about, and gave a short, 
sharp yelp. 

It was the yelp he kept for the very 
wonderful days when he spied a mouse 
or a cat, or sometimes even a rat. Buz 
knew that yelp; and having yelped it, 
Fury sat down on his hind quarters 
before the wall. 

Buz was a long, long time in com¬ 
ing. Fury feared to fall asleep once 
more, while waiting there patiently. 
Yet Buz was on the way. 

Fury heard something drop, perhaps 
the stupid book with the green back 
and the red-edged leaves; then a chair 
squeaked on the floor and hit wood, as 
if pushed hard against the library sofa; 
and now Buz’s shoes were pattering 
through the hall. But a boy’s two 
legs, good as they may be, don’t com¬ 
pare with a dog’s four legs, or even a 
dog’s three legs, if that dog is a Fury. 
So it seemed to take a very long while, 
though it was not really more than one 
minute and twenty seconds and one- 
quarter beat of another second, by the 


Buz and Fury 


27 


little second hand of a big gold watch 
with a double gold chain and a lapis 
lazuli seal on the end. 

When near the wall, Buz slowed 
down and crept as softly as Fury had 
crept to leave the library. He didn’t 
want to frighten away the creature, 
whatever it was. Fury knew Buz be¬ 
lieved that special yelp had meant a 
rat or something. And so, like any 
honest person who has made a fool of 
anybody else, Fury began to feel very 
much of a fool, too. Buz was kind, 
and played nicely; and it was ungrate¬ 
ful to play tricks on him. Besides, 
when you begin to act fibs, just as when 
you begin to tell fibs, you’ve got to 
carry them on in many complicated 
ways, getting deeper and deeper into a 
tangle until you’re caught sooner or 
later, sure as a gun. 

“If I go away now,” Fury thought, 
“Buz will think I’ve lost the rat. If 
I stay, he’ll think the same. And he’ll 
call me stupid, and go back to his 
horrid green book with the red-edged 
leaves.” 


28 


Buz and Fury 


So he couldn’t make up his mind 
what to do. But being a sensible dog, 
he did the very sensiblest thing 
imaginable. He kept perfectly still, 
without moving a hair—not a single 
one of his short white hairs. Buz kept 
quite still too, not moving a hair either 
—not a single one of his short dark 
ones. Only, Fury’s nose was quiet too, 
because he didn’t expect anything to 
happen, while Buz’s nostrils— 

—(By the way, did I think of men¬ 
tioning that Buz’s nose was turned up 
just a tiny bit, and had seven freckles 
on the end, nearest the sun?)— 

—Buz’s nostrils quivered every once 
in a while, because he was excited, ex¬ 
pecting extraordinary exertions every 
moment. 

Staying still is a thing dogs can do, 
occasionally, and then they’re called 
clever. I’ve heard say it’s a thing 
boys can do, too, more rarely, and 
then they are called wise. As for me, 
I’ve seen so few boys stay still that I 
don’t dare say anything about it. 


Buz and Fury 


29 


Anyhow, the result for Buz and Fury 
was this: 

They hadn’t been there together 
longer than the time Fury would have 
taken to wag his tail six times—and 
since it was a very short tail, that 
wasn’t very long (I mean the time 
wasn’t)—when, to Buz’s great satis¬ 
faction and to Fury’s immense amaze¬ 
ment, a large he-rat came sure enough, 
and peeped out from among the loose 
bricks with his sharp beady eyes! 

Now, Fury had had quite a lot of 
experience catching mice, and had al¬ 
ways wanted a chance at a big, fierce 
rat. Whenever old black Aunt Dimp- 
sey called him to the kitchen because 
of a mouse, he would pretend it was a 
rat to put up a proper fight and let 
him prove what a plucky Australian 
fox-terrier he was. But he wished his 
first rat might have come some other 
day than to-day. He had slept too 
soundly, and didn’t feel very well. 
You never do, if you sleep soundly 
after eating a good dinner. It was 
entirely a matter of health, this feel- 


30 


Buz and Fury 


ing he had. He knew, because it was 
in his insides, and made him think 
something was slipping and slipping 
away, while his legs got all tottery. 

By a strange coincidence, he had 
heard, only yesterday, stories about 
rats which really deserved considering 
before he tried to fight one. And by a 
stranger coincidence, he kept remem¬ 
bering details of those stories now. 

Two dogs had been talking in the 
street. They said that rats scooted 
when they could, but if you cornered 
them they sprang at you and bit you. 
And their bite wasn’t like a dog’s or a 
cat’s, or a mouse’s; their teeth were 
so foul that their bite was like poison, 
almost as bad as a snake’s bite. Fury 
didn’t know what a snake was, but the 
very sound of it made him shiver. 

How was he to tackle a rat almost 
as bad as a snake? 

Buz crouched behind him, scarcely 
breathing, waiting. So Fury waited 
too, hoping and hoping that the horrid 
thing would slip away to the other side 


Buz and Fury 


31 


of the wall, as so many rats had done 
before. 

And this one would have done that 
too, if it had been an ordinary rat. 
But there was something not at all 
ordinary about it: it was a big old he- 
rat with extremely wicked eyes. The 
wall was an old, tumblety-down brick 
wall, with a new brick wall built up 
behind it. Buz knew that his mother 
had not allowed it to be pulled down 
because staghorn fern grew over it 
and made that end of the garden look 
pretty. But all Fury cared about was 
that, the wall being double with a space 
in the middle, any rat could have got 
away that wanted to—and this one 
didn’t want to. 

Cold shivers kept running along 
Fury’s spine. He didn’t let Buz guess 
what they were; he had enough presence 
of mind to wiggle his tail each time, 
pretending it was all excitement. And 
he stayed there, like the good dog he 
was, just as many a boy has stayed for 
a fight, and many a man too, because 
he had to. 


32 


Buz and Fury 


Then the whole business was over 
before Fury knew how it had started. 
The rat leaped out from the wall 
straight at Fury’s face, and Fury 
dodged and caught him with his teeth 
in the very middle of the back. That 
would have been just right for a mouse; 
but the rat turned like a flash and bit 
his lip. Fury screamed with pain and 
shut his eyes, but only closed down 
tighter with his sharp teeth. The rat 
bit again, this time on the very end of 
Fury’s nose. 

It was not only the most awful pain 
he’d ever felt, but he was smothered 
by a warm, sticky liquid. He had to 
open his jaws to breathe. At that, the 
rat got away. But Fury was on him 
again in a flash; and in spite of pain 
and of blood, he had done some think¬ 
ing. This time, he caught the rat by 
the neck, close behind the head, and 
bit—bit just as hard as he knew how, 
not letting anything interfere until the 
rat had stopped wiggling. 

Buz ran away and came back with a 
bowl of water and a sponge to bathe 


Buz and Fury 33 

Fury’s wounds. But Fury didn’t mind 
being hurt. He’d almost been a 
coward, but all the same he’d done 
what he had to do; and he would never 
again be afraid of a rat or anything 
else. It’s a way some dogs have, and 
a way some boys have too—when 
they’re no longer afraid of one thing, 
they really believe they’ll never be 
afraid of anything else. And it’s per¬ 
fectly true that the less they are afraid 
of, the less they will be afraid of. 

Next day, Buz was away at school 
an hour later than usual, and when he 
came home, he kicked the book with the 
green back and the red-edged leaves, 
and sent it zipping under a chair as if 
it had stung him. Fury looked on, 
from the hearth rug; and though he 
thought of the rat he’d killed to get 
Buz to drop that book, he couldn’t 
make out what might be wrong now, 
and so he wasn’t the least bit sorry. 


















/ 




* 



* 


X 







CHAPTER III 
The Moonlight Dreams 

There was moonlight, that night. A 
bright, full, silvered Southern moon 
peeped in at the windows, though its 
beams couldn’t quite reach the bed. 
Buz knew he must not sleep in the 
light of the moon. Somebody had told 
him that lunatic meant moon-struck. 
That must have been a joke. But 
everybody agreed to say he must keep 
out of the way of moon-beams when he 
slept, because the light would make 
him think, and so he would dream too 
much. 

And, in fact, though the moon could 
not quite reach him, the room was 
filled with brightness; and so, while he 
lay busily sleeping, he dreamed strange 
dreams. 

One dream put him in a wonderful 
enchanted garden blazing with lights 
that bloomed like flowers and burned 
like suns. (That was entirely the 


36 


Buz and Fury 


moon’s fault for lighting up the room 
as if it were day; but he didn’t know 
it.) 

Another dream put him deep down 
in a terribly black pit; and when he got 
down, down, down, he found it was not 
black at all, but so far away from the 
air and the sky that he couldn’t 
breathe, and must smother if he stayed 
there one minute longer. (That was 
principally the fault of the mosquito- 
net hanging round his bed and keeping 
away what little breeze there was; but 
he didn’t know it.) 

A third dream set him to fighting 
with a fierce animal that was some¬ 
thing like an elephant and something 
like a porcupine, and it sang its war- 
song with a voice that sounded like 
ten hundred trumpets blown all to¬ 
gether. (That was largely the fault of 
a mosquito humming as it tried to find 
a hole in the net to fly in and bite him; 
but he didn’t know it.) 

He wasn’t quite sure, when he 
thought about it all next morning, if he 
finished this third dream. The animal 


Buz and Fury 


37 


certainly hadn’t eaten him, and he 
couldn’t believe he had been enough 
of a hero to conquer it. Anyhow, he 
knew he couldn’t have run away, be¬ 
cause in the dream there was nowhere 
to run to. 

Well, when this third dream had 
ended, or when it changed just because 
it wanted to, in the irritating manner 
dreams have, a fourth dream came. 
And it surprised him very very much 
more than any of the others. 

All the chairs, and beds, and tables, 
and book-cases, and general furniture 
and odd fittings throughout the house 
—so he dreamed—were tumbling down 
the stairs as hard and as loud and as 
fast as ever they possibly could. The 
very last of all, when the rooms were 
stripped bare, Buz saw his father’s 
large mahogany book-case, which 
reached nearly up to the library ceil¬ 
ing, go clattering in the wake of the 
rest, its doors wide open as it scat¬ 
tered the books along the way. And 
each book would pick itself up as soon 
as it had fallen, and would go on 


38 


Buz and Fury 


bounding and rolling down like a ball. 

< < There, that ends the noise, at least,’ ’ 
he said to himself, vastly relieved. Be¬ 
cause though he didn’t mind noise as 
a rule, he felt it could be too much of 
a good thing when other people made 
it. As for this particular noise, it had 
been so terrific that, after everything 
else had grown quiet, the drums of his 
ears kept on drumming from excite¬ 
ment. (That was part of the dream, 
of course, but it seemed perfectly real 
—as real as the books which bounced 
and rolled like balls, and he’d never 
seen anything more lifelike than that.) 

“How sorry Father will be,” Buz 
thought. And then a good idea came 
to him. He might go down and see 
which of the things had got all broken 
and would have to be thrown away— 
(“I hope they’ll let me help, that would 
be fun,” he added)—and which of the 
things could be patched and mended 
and used again—(“I hope I won’t have 
to help with that, I wouldn’t know 
how,” he added). 

So he made up his mind to get up. 


Buz and Fury 


39 


But that was easier to think than to 
do. (It wasn’t the first time Buz had 
found a thing easier to think than to 
do.) For his bed had somehow got out 
into the sky, and was sticking there all 
by itself! 

Getting up was of no use, then. He 
lay there wondering what would hap¬ 
pen to him if he tumbled out before the 
ladder came. (He didn’t know which 
ladder, when he tried to remember, 
next day. Perhaps it was only the 
garden ladder; or perhaps he expected 
the firemen to bring their hook-and- 
ladder; or else, being so high in the 
sky, perhaps nothing could have helped 
but Jacob’s ladder.) 

He was struggling to untangle his 
hands and feet from the yards of sheet 
which had got wrapped round and 
round him, making him feel like a snail 
in the shell, when— 

When he heard another noise which 
made him hold his breath and muffle 
his ears and roll his head in the pillows, 
and he very glad his bed was out of 
the house, even if it had got blown into 


40 


Buz and Fury 


the sky and been caught up there so 
he couldn’t get down. 

Big and awful as this new noise was, 
nobody could have mistaken it: 

The house was tumbling down its 
own stairs! 

Leaning over the edge of the bed, 
he peeped down, trembling with excite¬ 
ment. (Of course it was excitement: 
no boy worth the name was ever afraid 
when alone in the night, whatever 
might happen.) 

Yes, he was absolutely right about 
the house. The ceilings and floors, the 
windows and doors, the carpets and 
rugs, the pitchers and mugs, the plaster 
and lath, the railings and bath, the 
basement and roof, and—well, that’s 
enough!—were pouring downstairs just 
exactly as the furniture had poured a 
few minutes before; and they were 
doing it every particle as easily, al¬ 
though the house, in order to get 
through its own stairs, had to turn it¬ 
self inside out. Yes it did—like a glove 
passing through one of its own 
fingers! 


Buz and Fury 


41 


Then, just as he was about to slip 
over the edge of the bed, forgetting all 
the sky that lay between him and the 
earth, luckily he woke up, all of a 
sudden, with a violent start. Next 
instant, the bed seemed to drop like a 
shot, landing in the very middle of the 
broken furniture and gloved house. 
(In his dream he called it a gloved 
house.) 

He saw the moonbeams; and he felt 
the mosquito-net; and he heard the 
mosquito singing. 

Really and truthfully, he was half 
out of bed, and a most peculiar noise 
did fill the house, and something had 
rattled all the way downstairs and had 
landed with a crash and a bang at the 
bottom. 

For some seconds, he sat quite still. 
He knew it wasn’t the house turning 
inside out; and he knew it wasn’t any¬ 
thing so big as a book-case, and there 
weren’t as many things as if the books 
were bouncing and rolling like balls; 
and he knew the noise wasn’t bad 
enough to make the drums of his ears 


42 


Buz and Fury 


go on drumming by themselves when 
there was nothing left to drum on them. 
But all this didn’t keep him from know¬ 
ing that it was very strange and—and 
exciting. 

He sat on the edge of the bed, with 
his bare feet on the floor, and listened. 

The night was very quiet and very 
silent. There wasn’t any more breeze, 
and people had long since stopped pass-, 
ing in the street. Even the mosquito 
had given up singing, now that Buz 
had crept outside the net. That 
mosquito had found a better employ¬ 
ment than singing. It was peacefully 
eating away at Buz’s nice white knee, 
while Buz was so busy listening for 
sounds from downstairs or from the 
garden, that he didn’t feel what was 
going on against his skin. 

Ah! 

Buz gave such a violent start that 
he shook the mosquito; but it had eaten 
too much, the greedy thing, and 
couldn’t get free and fly to safety. 
Next instant, when Buz drew his knees 
together with an excited wop, the 


Buz and Fury 


43 


mosquito — well, the mosquito was 
crushed so flat that he never went 
prowling about any more waiting for 
a chance to eat people while they slept, 
and he never any more made a sound 
like ten hundred trumpets, nor like the 
ten-hundredth part of a trumpet, even. 

This is what Buz heard: 

The thing—whatever it was—that 
had clattered down stairs, was now 
clambering up again. No mistake 
about it. The more sharply he listened, 
the surer he was. 

Do you wonder he drew his knees 
together with an excited wop which 
killed the mosquito? 

Presently came the rattling once 
more, down, down, down — only it 
v wasn’t happening where he had be¬ 
lieved. The stairs weren’t the inside 
stairs in the huge half-cylinder under 
the skylight with blue and red and 
orange lights. They were the outside 
stairs, fourteen steps leading from the 
lower verandah to the lawn at the back 
of the house. Two of the windows of 
his big corner room opened on the 


44 


Buz and Fury 


verandah above those steps. By look¬ 
ing carefully down, he could know. 

He crept through his room, flitted 
out of one of the windows which opened 
down to the floor, and tiptoed across 
the verandah. He didn’t make any 
noise, because he didn’t want to be 
either heard or seen; the moon made 
the night almost as bright as day, shin¬ 
ing whitely on the grey-painted 
balustrade over which he leaned. He 
raised his hands and spread them out 
over his head, to hide the dark patch 
his head would make in all this white¬ 
ness. Not moving, and scarcely breath¬ 
ing, he watched and listened, listened 
and watched. 

For a long time, he didn’t see or 
hear anything; and he grew tired and 
chilly, standing there quite still with 
the sea-breeze blowing round him. 

As he turned away to go back to 
bed, he took his hands from his head. 
Then, a sharp little yelp told him that 
his patch of hair had given him away 
after all, and that the author of the 
noise was Fury! 


Buz and Fury 


45 


But that didn’t tell how Fury had 
done it, nor why. He could see Fury 
now, whirling in the grass with his 
forefeet down and his hind legs held 
up, for all the world like a big pin- 
wheel. Fury had waked him up on 
purpose to make him come and play 
in the moonlight. That was the Why. 
Only a very big How was still left. 

What could Fury have found to drag 
up the stairs and rattle down again, 
several times over, to wake his play¬ 
mate—not to mention the whole family, 
and all the neighbors, and perhaps the 
moon and the stars themselves? 

Buz scolded Fury from the height 
of the verandah, and went hack to bed 
carrying the question with him. He 
still had the question hanging round 
his neck when he got up a second time 
because Fury had started all over 
again. 

I should be afraid to say how often 
Fury repeated this game. As soon as 
Buz got into bed, the noise would 
break out; and as soon as Buz got up, 


46 


Buz and Fury 


the thing which made the noise would 
vanish. 

At last, Buz’s father ordered him to 
go down and make his dog he quiet. 
When Buz’s father talked to him about 
“your dog,” Buz knew it was desper¬ 
ately serious. So Buz put on his 
dressing-gown and slippers—a new 
pair of slippers—and went down. 

He was no wiser on the lawn than 
he had been in bed. Fury played the 
pin-wheel to greet his master; but 
when Buz hunted and scolded and ques¬ 
tioned, trying to discover what it was 
Fury had used, Fury just laughed. 
Buz could see his lips stretch out and 
his teeth gleam saucily under the 
shadows of the tall leaf-covered trees. 
Fury was having as much fun as when 
he had been busy with his game, be¬ 
cause he knew his mystery and Buz 
didn’t. 

Buz felt proud of “his dog’s” 
cleverness, but this was going rather 
too far. He came very near losing his 
temper. What Fury did then was to 
make for the City of Befuge as hard 


BUZ AND FUKY 


47 


as he could, being sure Buz would re¬ 
spect that. 

And so Buz did respect it. The fact 
is, he respected it much more than 
usual—so very much, that he shut the 
carriage-house door tight and let Fury 
enjoy the City of Befuge for what was 
left of the night. 

As for Buz, he went to bed, more 
and more puzzled each time he mur¬ 
mured his question to himself. The 
only answer which seemed at all sen¬ 
sible came in a dream he had at day¬ 
break. He dreamed that Fury had 
borrowed a horse’s four hoofs to dance 
in the moonlight, under promise of 
running quick and giving them back 
whenever a human being came near. 



CHAPTER IV 
Fury's Secret 

“Wherever you land 
It's sure to be— 

Right hand, left hand, 

Or away from me— 

And then away with the mysteree/" 

So sang Buz, with words he had in¬ 
vented himself, to a tune he hadn't in¬ 
vented at all, while he swung Fury in 
a new game they had invented between 
them. They wouldn't have called it a 
game, though. They would have called 
it work. And Buz's song explained the 
kind of work it was. 

Buz had been reading a story about 
men who used witch-hazel forks and 
pieces of silver to find springs; and 
he was using Fury in the place of a 
silver fork—I mean silver in a fork— 
to find what it was that made so much 
noise at night as soon as everything 
was still, and that disappeared by 


50 


BUZ AND FUKY 


magic whenever anybody came to see. 
The explanation about hoofs borrowed 
from a horse didn’t seem so sensible 
when he was awake as it had seemed 
in his dream. Besides, explanations 
wouldn’t do any more. He needed 
facts. ^ 

Every night, for five long, dreadful 
moonlight nights — there’d been a 
merciful cloudy night in between, 
when nothing happened — for five 
nights, then, Fury had made a terrific 
disturbance on the stairs to wake Buz 
and bring him down to play. As the 
moon rose later and later, Fury started 
later and later too; but that made it 
seem only worse. 

There wasn’t any doubt that Fury 
knew perfectly what he was doing. He 
had some special object which he kept 
in a hiding-place of his own during the 
day; and when the moon came out, he 
would go and fetch it and drag it up¬ 
stairs and let it slide down, and then 
begin over again, until Buz came to 
play with him; but as soon as he heard 
Buz stirring he would rush off and hide 


Buz and Fury 


51 


it so it shouldn’t be taken away from 
him, and he would come dancing back 
all alone. No matter how softly Buz 
crept, Fury would hear him in time. 
Once, Buz saw that the object was long 
enough to make Fury run sideways 
and be hit on the flank by it; when that 
happened, Fury jumped aside, and got 
a fresh grip with his teeth before run¬ 
ning on again. But Buz was still far 
off, and when he reached the middle 
of the lawn, Fury was leaping and 
whirling about, ready to play with Buz 
and having nothing but himself to 
show. 

Fury got a great deal of fun out of 
Buz’s hunts. Through the carriage- 
house, in the long grass, among the 
flower-beds, under the trees, round or 
behind every article that lay about the 
place, Buz looked industriously, with 
Fury dancing and leaping and barking 
after him wherever he went. But Buz 
found nothing. When Buz hunted at 
night, the end always was that Fury 
got locked up; when Buz hunted by 
day, the end always was that Fury ran 


52 


Buz and Fury 


to the City of Refuge as soon as things 
began to look stormy. But nothing was 
ever found. 

Then one afternoon Buz’s father 
came out and said something very 
seriously. Fury felt it was about him, 
though spoken to Buz; and he guessed 
that his night-game had something to 
do with it. He drooped his ears and 
dropped his tail, and looked up at Buz. 

Buz had a solemn expression in his 
eyes, and crinkles in his forehead up 
to the very line of his hair. Buz had 
heard his father say that unless the 
thing was found that very afternoon, 
Fury should be locked up that night 
before the family went to bed. 

‘ ‘ Locked up—alone in the dark—all 
night, my Fury!” Buz said so mourn¬ 
fully that Fury let his head fall too, 
to keep his ears and tail company. 
4 ‘No moon—no fun—no anything? 
And all the burglars free to come in 
and burgle us when they know we 
haven’t got any watch-dog any more!” 
Then Buz’s forehead smoothed and 
his eyes brightened and his lips spread 


Buz and Fury 


53 


in a nice smile as he lunged over to 
catch Fury, saying: “Such a big 
watch-dog! What little man wouldn’t 
be afraid of him?” 

Now that Buz had laughed, Fury 
didn’t care any more; they were going 
to play, of course. Fury darted off: to 
run round the lawn and come back, 
when he tripped on a cushion forgotten 
in the long grass, rolled over it, 
jumped up, and caught a corner of it 
in his teeth, growling and worrying it. 

But Buz had remembered. 

“So you want to play with me, do 
you?” he said. “Well, I don’t want 
to play with you. You’re entirely too 
naughty.” And he took the cushion 
by the other end, to pull it away. 

Buz hadn’t spoken severely, and it 
wasn’t ever so very hard to make him 
play; though he might begin by saying 
he wouldn’t, that was often only the 
beginning of the game. So Fury held 
on as tight as he could. 

“Oh, you won’t let go?” said Buz. 
“We’ll see if you won’t!” And 


54 


Buz and Fury 


tightening his hold on the cushion, he 
turned and ran, dragging it after him. 

Fury still held on. 

Buz ran round in a circle. 

Fury still held on. 

Buz ran round the circle a second 
time. 

Fury still held on. 

Buz turned as fast as he could; the 
cushion left the ground and swung out 
in the air at the end of Buz’s arm. 

Fury had his eyes closed, now, but 
he didn’t let go. 

Buz, when he saw what he’d done, 
was so surprised that he opened his 
hand. 

The cushion flew away, landing in a 
heap with Fury, while Buz stumbled 
back a couple of steps, and—sat down 
very suddenly and very hard. 

Next moment, Fury was biting and 
growling at the cushion again, and the 
next moment after that, Buz had hold 
of the other end again. Not that Buz 
wanted to play. Oh, no! But he had 
to show Fury that he wasn’t beaten. 

‘ ‘ Bound and round and round we 


Buz and Fury 


55 


go!” sang Buz, turning again with a 
will. 

There was nothing to surprise him, 
this time, so Buz kept his hand tightly 
closed. 

As for Fury, he knew that his eye¬ 
teeth weren’t strong enough for this 
sort of work, so he’d caught on with his 
big jaw-teeth (big for Fury, anyway), 
and he thought he could hold on as long 
as he pleased. 

But suddenly Fury felt himself 
grabbed by the hind legs and jerked 
off. He went tumbling and stumbling 
through the long grass, and was very 
angry, because that wasn’t fair. Yet 
when he steadied himself and looked 
about, there was nobody except Buz, 
who, of course, couldn’t have done it. 

Perhaps Buz remembered a lesson 
he’d had the day before, telling him 
about Centrifugal Force. (And per¬ 
haps he didn’t.) Anyway, he didn’t try 
to explain to Fury, but just laughed 
at him for looking so foolish, and then 
said: 

“Well, you silly, come and try it 


56 


Buz and Fury 


just once more, and then I’ll have a 
last look before going in the house and 
finishing that witch-hazel and lost 

treasure story before dark. So-” 

Buz stopped short, with his mouth 
wide open and his eyes sparkling. A 
big idea had come to him, right there, 
and quite by accident: 

“Why, Fury, you’ve got to find your 
treasure yourself! I’ll turn you, and 
whichever way you fall will be the right 
way for me to hunt!” 

He caught up one corner of the 
cushion, and Fury bit another, and 
they started round. And as he twirled, 
twirled, twirled, with the cushion at the 
end of his outstretched arm and two 
sprawling legs at the end of the out¬ 
stretched Fury, Buz invented some 
verses: 

“WTherever you land, 

It’s sure to be, 

Right hand, left hand, 

Or away from me— 

And then away with the mysteree/” 
Buz said it over several times before 
Fury flew away to the right, leaving 



Buz and Fury 


57 


the cushion behind. Buz looked where 
Fury had fallen, and didn’t find any¬ 
thing except Fury and grass. 

“Now, Fury—play fair!” Buz or¬ 
dered, as he held out the cushion in¬ 
vitingly and bobbed it in the grass to 
make Fury bite. “You let go too soon. 
All your fault! Those aren’t the rules 
of the game.” 

Next time, Fury flew off to the left. 
But still, Buz didn’t find anything. 

Then he got ready for the last time, 
and he looked very business-like in¬ 
deed. He had his lips pressed together 
so tight that they hadn’t any more 
shape than a pair of tweezers; and he’d 
put on a frown that spoiled his nice 
smooth forehead for him; and he’d got 
his cravat twisted round under one 
ear; and he’d got his collar unbuttoned 
behind and riding up on his neck; and 
the edge of his coat had got caught 
over the top of his trousers; and one 
stocking had started to come down, 
and the other was already rumpling at 
the knee as if it weren’t going to be left 
behind; and he’d got a smear of dirt 


58 


BUZ AND FUKY 


on one cheek that made the freckles on 
his turned-np nose look very big in¬ 
deed; and his hands were all greeny 
and grubby in streaks; and the only 
thing about him which didn’t look 
positively disreputable was his hair, 
and that was cropped close expressly 
so it shouldn’t get hot and dirty and 
horrid and tangled. 

“Now, Fury!” he said. He had to 
part his lips to say it, and as he was 
getting short of breath, he left them a 
little bit open after that, which made 
him look more outrageous than ever. 
‘‘Now, Fury! And this time, no cheat¬ 
ing ! ’ ’ 

And sure enough, there wasn’t. 

Because Fury didn’t go either to 
right or to left, but just let go—he was 
growing tired—just let go rather sud¬ 
denly, before he was jerked off from 
behind, and so he flew backwards and 
landed, hind legs foremost, sitting in 
the very tallest grass. 

He looked so foolish that Buz 
collapsed in order to laugh com¬ 
fortably, and went rolling over and 


Buz and Fury 


59 


over in the grass. (Which didn’t im¬ 
prove his appearance at all.) 

When he was almost next to Fury, 
Buz struck, in one of his rolls, some¬ 
thing which made him cry, ‘‘Ouch!” 
as he bruised his hand on it. He 
thought it must be a stone, and he was 
going to take one more roll and reach 
Fury, when he happened to glance up. 

Iff _m_f ? f j f _ ffffffffffff 

l ! ! !-? 

What, except a very guilty con¬ 
science, had ever made Fury look so 
innocent? Could it—could it he pos¬ 
sible that— 

Buz put out his hand to feel for the 
thing which had hurt him. 

Fury was up in a flash, worrying the 
cushion to make Buz play. But Buz 
didn’t notice him. Fury leaped about, 
running away and darting back again 
towards Buz, saying as plainly as any¬ 
body could, 11 Come and play! Do come 
and play!” But Buz didn’t notice him. 
Fury dropped the cushion and sprang 
to the old wall and gave his special 



60 


Buz and Fury 


rat-bark. But still Buz didn’t notice 
him. 

Because Buz knew, just by the way 
Fury was behaving, that the charm 
had worked, and that Fury, after fall¬ 
ing “Right hand” and “Left hand” 
had fallen “Away from me”—and so 
“Away with the mysteree/” 

When Buz picked up the thing which 
had hurt him, which was the thing he 
had worried about for so many nights, 
it was—it was— 

Nothing more nor less than an old 
worn-out broom! 

Buz ran towards the house, waving 
the broom in triumph and singing that 
new song over and over again. Fury, 
sulking by his rat-wall, thought it a 
very silly thing for Buz to do, now the 
game was up. Fury didn’t see why 
Buz should be proud of inventing a 
song or finding an old broom. Fury 
didn’t feel proud, anyhow. 

When Buz’s father heard the story, 
he made only one little remark which 
didn’t appear very appropriate, just at 
first. 


Buz and Fury 


61 


“My poor Buz!” he said. “If the 
grass had been cut, you wouldn’t have 
had all this trouble!” 

Buz didn’t say anything, but he went 
up to his room looking almost as 
foolish as Fury. He was very par¬ 
ticularly clean when he came down¬ 
stairs, and was on his best behavior 
all the evening and didn’t ask to sit 
up only a little longer when told it was 
bed-time. 

The next day was a holiday, and he 
spent it mowing the grass, without any¬ 
body telling him to do it; and he did it 
most beautifully, too. He was very 
much congratulated, and helped three 
times to pudding, and given the money 
he wanted to buy a new ball and a box 
of paints. 

But I’ve often wondered if the 
credit didn’t really belong to Fury? 

There’s one thing I ought to have 
told you, while talking about the even¬ 
ing. Buz made a huge bond-fire for 
the broom as soon as night came. He 
cut holes for doors and windows in the 
side of a box which he had colored as 


62 


Buz and Fury 


if it had been a house —(now you know 
why he wanted a new box of paints 
next day)—and put the broom inside, 
with the handle sticking up through 
the roof to look like a flag-staff; and 
to the top of the flag-staff he tied a 
streamer of white cloth on which he'd 
printed in ink: 

Hurra!! Well all sleep tonighte!!! 

Then he packed in sawdust and bits 
of paper and moss, and called all the 
family, and held Fury in his arms, and 
set a match to the pile and started it 
blazing gloriously. It was a splendid 
fire, and when the broom-stick came 
crashing down in the charred and 
blackened ruins, everybody cheered. 
(That is, Buz said so afterwards. But 
I've always had my doubts about 
Fury.) 

There was peace, that night, and for 
ever after—or at least, until one night 
of the next week. But then, it wasn't 
any longer a matter of mere romping 
and broomsticks. 


CHAPTER V 
A Cat and a Fig Tree 

Fury woke up with a start that made 
him bump his head against the top of 
his house. A shiver had run down his 
backbone first, and then his tail had 
stiffened up, and after that his short 
white hair had bristled all round his 
neck, and last of all had come the 
bump which left him quivering. He 
didn’t know why—he just woke up to 
find it was so. 

And what made it worse was that 
he had the dreadful feeling which can 
come in the dark, that there’s some¬ 
body not very far away. He’d waked 
up with such a feeling before, when 
there was nobody at all, and had had 
to acknowledge it was all rubbish. But 
somehow, he knew it was true, this 
time. He didn’t remember that he’d 
somehow known it was true before, 
when it hadn’t been true at all. Only, 
it’s easier to forget you’ve been wrong 


64 


Buz and Fury 


than to forget you’ve been right; so 
Fury didn’t worry himself over past 
mistakes when he told himself he 
knew there was somebody in the yard 
to-night. 

Or if not somebody, then something. 
He hadn’t heard a single sound, and 
there wasn’t any distinct scent in the 
air. Whatever was happening, it 
hadn’t ever happened before. Fury 
was careful not to bark: he must be 
as quiet as the thing. He crept softly 
out from his house. 

The night was as dark as the coal- 
cellar. There would be a piece of moon 
by and bye, perhaps; but he was safer 
with it out of the way. The wind 
rustled softly in the trees, and rustled 
still more softly in the grass. 

And yet—how could it rustle in the 
grass? The walls were too high for 
that. Fury listened very hard. 

Ah! That was the sound of a twig 
breaking. If it fell, then it was the 
wind in a tree. If it didn’t fall, then 
it was somebody—or something—mov¬ 
ing in the grass. 


BUZ AND FUBY 


65 


It didn’t fall. 

So Fury knew which way he must 
creep, going as cautiously and silently 
as if he’d been his own shadow. And 
since it was so dark that his shadow 
couldn’t even be seen, you can imagine 
how cautiously and silently that was. 

He had to pass near his ruined rat- 
wall. Just before reaching it, his eyes 
pierced the darkness, and his nostrils 
caught a whiff of a sickening, unmis¬ 
takable scent. It was a scent of old 
rags, of dust-heaps, of garbage barrels; 
a scent of stuffy cupboards, of mouldy 
cellars, of rusted roofs; a scent of dirt, 
of trash, of food, of mice:— 

In a word, it was a stray cat. 

Now he understood why he’d waked 
up with a sudden start, all a-quiver and 
ready for a fight. Not that he knew 
any specially good reason why he 
should fight cats; only that he felt he 
was built that way, or perhaps he had 
been taught to be that way. He hadn’t 
ever stopped to ask or to argue; it was 
another simple case of he knew, and 
so he took it as a fact and never wasted 


66 


BUZ AND FUKY 


time and words over it. And he wasn’t 
going to waste time, or words either, 
to-night. 

He could make out the creature, from 
where he stood now: a darker spot on 
the dark grass. The wind was blowing 
towards him, and the creature hadn’t 
scented more than it heard, which, be¬ 
ing taken together and added up, made 
Nothing. But it seemed to have got 
anxious, for it turned its head—Fury 
knew that, because two bright green 
sparks shone out against the grass. 

Fury hadn’t ever fought a cat be¬ 
fore. The most he’d done had been to 
chase cats across the garden; as soon 
as he barked, they would skin up a 
tree, or fly over a wall, or do some¬ 
thing nice and comfortable like that. 
So Fury had been able to keep up 
appearances and pretend to be a 
famous cat-hunter, without stopping to 
ask what happened when by an un¬ 
happy accident a cat didn’t run. But 
at least, he’d fought rats and won; 
he’d made his mistakes, and got hurt, 
but he’d learned his lesson for next 


Buz and Fury 


67 


time. He might have to learn his 
lesson and take his medicine with a 
cat too; but he was ready to do his 
duty—or what he took for his duty. 

Since Fnry wasn’t sure how he ought 
to begin, he didn’t go straight at it, 
but tried to gain time to think out a 
plan. He put his ears up and wrinkled 
his forehead until the little black spot 
in the middle was blotted out—or 
would have been blotted out, if there’d 
been any light to blot it in first. Then 
he growled, and half-barked. Then he 
came forward two steps, and planted 
his forefeet down in front of him. 
Then he leaped back a step and half, 
as if somebody had struck him. 

The next second, somebody had 
struck him; and lucky it was for him 
that he was a step farther away than 
the somebody had judged. As it was, 
he got struck, and not only that, but 
got struck all over. If he’d known 
about porcupines, he might have said 
a dozen of them had dropped on him. 
But it was enough for him to know 
that the cat had hold of his feet and 


68 


Buz and Fury 


legs and tail and nose and ears and 
eyes and head and back and sides and 
chest, all at the same time, and was 
ploughing them up until he could feel 
the claws meet inside him. And he 
had on his part only one mouth to 
fight with, though the cushion-drill Buz 
had given him helped him to hold on 
hard when he could catch the cat any¬ 
where. 

Meanwhile, the cat was snarling and 
screaming and wailing and spitting in 
the most alarming tones of voice he’d 
ever heard. Suddenly, she let him go—, 
(he guessed now that it was the big 
grey she-cat of the neighbors over on 
the side from which the sun came each 
morning)—she let him go, and, when 
he still held on, she cuffed him on the 
jaw with her paw opened out and her 
claws stretched. It came as a sur¬ 
prise, and it came very hard; and Fury 
let go. The only consolation he had 
then was that he could make a noise 
too, and he barked his loudest as he 
made after her. 

She had bounced off across the grass, 


Buz and Fury 


69 


keeping very quiet, now. The moon 
was beginning to glow faintly, low 
down in the sky; and for some 
seconds Buz had been calling down 
from the verandah near his bed-room. 
Buz heard a mad scrambling which told 
him the cat had flown up the big fig- 
tree, and so had reached the ivy-covered 
wall, and probably got back safely to 
her own garden. But there was an¬ 
other noise of scuffling and climbing, 
long after any self-respecting cat would 
have disappeared; and in the dim 
moonlight it looked to Buz as if— 

But moonlight is a bad thing to 
judge by, and Buz told himself he must 
have been dreaming, to think of im¬ 
possible things like that. And since he 
believed there wouldn’t be any more 
fighting and squawling that night, he 
went back to bed, after promising to 
send a pair of shoes at Fury’s head if 
another single sound was heard before 
morning. 

The next afternoon, Buz took a hook 
up in the fig-tree, intending to read for 
a quiet half-hour. He made himself 


70 


Buz and Fury 


comfortable in his favorite seat, a big 
knot from which two branches had been 
cnt away, and which was in shape 
something between a chair and a sad¬ 
dle. Buz liked to sit there and tease 
Fury for not being able to come up. 
And he liked it, too, because there was 
a mysterious iron hook in the knot, 
which pirates might have used to hang 
a rope on and swing it out to a place 
where they had buried treasure. Buz 
would have liked to find that treasure; 
but he ’d dug so much round the roots 
of the tree, looking for it, that his 
father had bought out his interest for 
a dollar and saved the tree’s life. So 
the most Buz could do since was to sit 
up on the knot and think how rich 
somebody might be some day. 

Fury had come running up, of course, 
to see what Buz was doing in the fig- 
tree ; but he didn’t watch Buz enviously 
from under the knot, as he usually did. 
Instead, he went round to the trunk, 
near the roots, and looked up at the 
first branches as if he knew exactly 
what they were. The tree slanted, and 


Buz and Fury 


71 


there were knots and branches all the 
way up. Fury looked at them for a 
while, then backed away a few steps, 
and then, before Buz had been able to 
make out what it meant— 

Fury had taken a running jump and 
was half-way up the tree. 

Buz gave a long, low whistle of sur¬ 
prise, and watched open-eyed, without 
moving so much as a finger. Fury 
swayed a little, seemed seasick, and 
showed he was sorry he hadn’t stayed 
where he belonged. He recovered 
quickly, though, and started to climb 
on. 

He reached up with one paw, and 
then thrust out its claws; he put up 
the other forepaw, and thrust out its 
claws; then very gingerly he put up 
one hind leg, and then the other hind 
leg. With the help of his neck, which 
he used as a lever, he got to the next 
branch. The branch after that was 
fairly easy. And so presently he found 
himself so close to Buz’s big knot that 
he was able to stretch out a paw and 
touch it. 


72 


Buz and Fury 


Buz gave Fury a startled look, and 
letting himself down with his knees, 
elbows, and hands, jumped easily to 
the ground and stood still, waiting to 
see what Fury would do next. 

Fury was frightened when he stood 
alone up there. But he wasn't going 
to be beaten for a matter of a few 
inches after climbing so far. Two 
minutes later, he was on Buz's big 
knot, and looking over into the next 
garden at his enemy the cat. 

There she sat, licking herself down. 
Fury began to wonder what good it 
did to hate cats. They were smaller 
than he was, and a great many of them 
were girls. It might be enough, in 
future, if he kept the premises clear of 
them, without trying to hurt them. If 
he'd barked from a distance, last night, 
and started to run after her only when 
she started to run away, she wouldn't 
be licking a wound now, and he wouldn't 
be watching her out of one eye while 
the other was closed up for at least 
two days. Yes, since cats were so 
scary as to run when a dog barked, a 


Buz and Fury 


73 


dog did his duty when he scared them. 
Next time Fury got hurt, he wanted it 
to be for something worth while; no 
more silly lights for him. There wasn’t 
any glory about a black eye unless you 
got it in a glorious cause. 

Talking of glorious things made him 
remember where he was and how he 
had got there. He looked proudly 
down, to make sure Buz was still im¬ 
pressed. Next moment, Buz was very 
much more impressed than Fury had 
intended. Because Fury got frightened, 
lost his balance, and fell, dropping on 
Buz’s head and knocking him down, so 
that they rolled over together in the 
soft earth round the foot of the tree— 
and the buried treasure. 

So it was that Fury learned to climb, 
first in his excitement when chasing the 
cat, and next in his pride to show off 
before Buz. And you shall hear by 
and bye of the startling adventures he 
had, which could never had happened 
if it hadn’t been for the neighbor’s 
grey cat and the slanting fig-tree, and 
the experiments he made in climbing. 


/ 




* 


.* 





















CHAPTER VI 
Buz is Missing 

It was full summer, now, and very 
hot. So hot that the wind itself was 
short of breath, or breathed only in little 
puffs as if panting. So hot that when 
you threw yourself down on the grass 
to cool off, you felt heat coming up 
from the ground too, besides what was 
coming down from the brazen sun in 
the glaring sky. So hot that the flies 
and the bees hummed softly, that the 
butterflies fluttered languidly, that the 
birds nestled quietly in the deep shadow 
of boughs, that the flowers wilted and 
tried to hide their heads behind leaves, 
that everything and everybody waited 
for an afternoon shower before taking 
the trouble to do anything. 

Fury had gone and curled up in his 
City of Refuge. Only because it was 
cool and dark in the carriage-house, 
and because a horse munching away in 
the stall near by had a lazy, cheerful 


76 


Buz and Fury 


sound. Yes, Fury was there because 
he wanted to be there. Buz was not 
after him. He only wished Buz had 
been after him. 

Very early that morning, Buz had 
come down and called Fury to play 
with him. Fury noticed that Buz looked 
fresh and clean; perhaps a little too 
fresh and clean. Buz seemed afraid to 
play roughly, and wouldn’t roll over in 
the grass. Buz wore shoes that shone 
wonderfully; and stockings without a 
crease at the knees; and a new blue 
serge suit; and a broad stiff white 
collar that spread out neatly on his 
shoulders and was properly fastened 
down all round; and his teeth and face 
were bright and shiny as if they’d been 
scrubbed very hard, and his hair was 
smooth and shiny because it had just 
been cut very, very, very short. 

Fury noticed all this as Buz ran in 
the early morning light, under a 
brilliant blue sky which had been swept 
and dusted and polished overnight; and 
Fury thought he’d never seen Buz look 
handsomer, and he’d never loved him 


Buz and Fury 


77 


more, though Buz might be wrong not 
to play as usual. 

Presently Buz took him up and 
hugged him; and Fury wriggled. Fury 
didn’t mean any harm; he only meant 
it was too hot for that sort of thing. 
Buz talked to him very gently, and 
stroked and patted him, but Fury only 
wriggled more. Then Buz put him in a 
cupboard and closed the door and 
turned the key on him. 

That made Fury angry. He said so 
in a growl and a bark. He hadn’t been 
naughty—it surely wasn’t naughty to 
wriggle when he was hugged too hard 
on a hot summer’s morning. He hadn’t 
done a single thing to deserve punish¬ 
ment. He could take his punishment 
like a man—sometimes—when he de¬ 
served it. But he had to deserve it. 

What was that heavy bundle being 
dragged downstairs? Fury asked him¬ 
self suddenly. He was missing lots of 
fun, which made his fate the harder. 
And who were those men tramping 
through the house? As if any strange 
people had the right to come in when 


78 


Buz and Fury 


he wasn’t there to see whether he liked 
their looks! This was contrary to rules 
and regulations. He harked loudly, 
which brought Buz to the door. Fury 
quieted, expecting to be freed at once. 
But Buz only buzzed at him, and went 
away. 

Before very long, Fury growled and 
barked himself hoarse. He couldn’t do 
much more than croak, which didn’t 
have a very dignified sound; and his 
feelings were so deeply hurt that he 
gave up trying to do that, and sat as 
far back as he could in the corner, say¬ 
ing nothing. I’m afraid he had grown 
very sulky. I know he told himself he 
would never see daylight again, and 
never would get anything to eat again, 
and he didn’t care if he didn’t, and so 
there, now! He would just stay and 
wait and wait and wait, until— 

Until the door opened so suddenly 
that he would have fallen over back¬ 
wards, if he hadn’t already been 
propped against the wall, or rather in 
the corner against two walls. 

The light streamed in so brightly 


Buz and Fury 


79 


that it blinded him, at first. But when 
he could see, he saw that it wasn’t Buz 
who had opened the door. 

(By the way, I wonder if you can see 
a thing that isn’tf That was how Fury 
put it to himself, and I am talking the 
way he thought.) 

It was Big Mistress who had re¬ 
membered him. And while he was glad 
to get out of the horrid black hole 
where he’d been punished without hav¬ 
ing done anything to be punished for, 
all the same he was angry with Buz. 
So he ran out alone in the garden to 
snap at flies and watch for rats without 
giving the weeniest kind of a bark to 
warn anybody. 

But there didn’t seem to be many 
flies to-day, and there wasn’t the 
slightest sign of a rat. Too hot for 
either, and too hot for Fury to trouble 
himself very much about them. Being 
an Australian fox-terrier, he didn’t 
really mind the heat; but he was de¬ 
pressed to see everything and every¬ 
body about him minding it. So he, too, 
panted and yawned and lazed, until he 


80 


Buz and Fury 


went to his City of Refuge, arguing 
that since it stopped trouble which had 
begun, perhaps it might work the other 
way and start trouble which was 
wanted. 

Yes, he was bored and lonesome. He 
was too proud to go and hunt for Buz; 
but his pride made him only more un¬ 
happy. How could he make advances, 
after such behavior on the part of Buz? 
And he knew Buz must be at home. 
School had closed for the summer 
(though Fury didn’t know it) and Buz 
had been with him all day for several 
days (that was what Fury knew). 

He fell asleep nursing his grievance, 
and was careful not to wake until old 
black Aunt Dimpsey called him for 
dinner. He stretched himself, trying 
to remember what he’d been thinking 
about before he went to sleep; then he 
sprang up and leaped towards the 
kitchen. With his ears drawn up and 
his forehead puckered, he looked about 
and listened. No Buz within sight, no 
Buz within sound. 

Fury ate his dinner, and afterwards 


Buz and Fury 


81 


old black Aunt Dimpsey took him up 
on her knees, and petted him and 
played with him. She often did that; 
but to-day she was gentler and kinder 
than ever, and it made him happier. 
He almost fell asleep again, as she 
stroked him, crooning to him as if he’d 
been a little child: 

‘‘Who slap dat chile? He mammy! 

What he slap him fo ’ f He sassy! 

Who he sassy to? He gramma! 

Hit him in de eye-ball him!” 

He didn’t feel so sore about his 
grievance, now he’d been loved and fed 
and sung to. Besides, he was growing 
curious. Buz hadn’t ever been away 
for so long, and hadn’t ever got up so 
early looking so fine. Fury barked 
several times, and waited, sitting up in 
Aunt Dimpsey’s lap. Nothing hap¬ 
pened. Then he dropped his dignity, 
scrambled down to the floor, and started 
off to hunt for Buz in dead earnest. 

The hunt began in Buz’s room, and 
ended there after he’d gone through 
every nook and corner of the house and 
gardens. Something peculiar about the 


82 


Buz and Fury 


room struck Fury when he first went 
into it, and the recollection of that 
something brought him back again. 
The mosquito-net was drawn up and 
wrapped in a sheet; another sheet was 
stretched over the bed. White cloths 
were also on the washing-stand, and 
the dressing-table, and the desk. Fury 
looked under the bed. Why, Buz’s 
slippers were gone! 

A dreadful fear came to him. He 
sprang to the wardrobe; the door was 
open a few inches. 

Buz’s clothes were gone. 

Then, Fury knew what it all meant. 

Buz had gone away and left him. 

They found Fury late that night, 
under Buz’s bed, curled up on a slipper 
he'd dragged out from under the ward¬ 
robe; it was the one whose mate he 
had eaten. But he wasn’t eating this 
one, he was hugging it, because it was 
all he could find that had belonged to 
Buz. He would have stayed where he 
was, though, even if he hadn’t got the 
slipper. Everything reminded him of 
Buz. Particularly a special clean and 


Buz and Fury 


83 


healthy smell, suggesting soap, which 
Buz carried with him and which Buz’s 
room had too. Fury was very fond of 
soap—on Buz. 

They called Fury, hut he wouldn’t 
come; they drew him gently out, and 
petted him, and called him nice names 
in soft voices; they carried him down¬ 
stairs and offered him a supper fit for 
a king—a king of dogs. 

But he wouldn’t pay attention, and 
he wouldn’t eat. They saw they wer^ 
only worrying him; and they left him 
in peace, and let him run out into the 
garden when he went to the door and 
whined. 

A bright thought had struck him. 
He leaped to the gate. 

He spent the whole night there, 
crouched down close against the gate, 
waiting for the sound of Buz’s steps. 
For Buz must come home some time; 
and Fury would be the very first to 
greet him. 


* 


CHAPTER VII 
Fury Climbs the Fence 

After his night spent at the gate, 
Fury was very sad indeed. 

He was tired and sleepy and hungry, 
which always makes even tiny little 
worries seem very bad; but besides 
this, he was getting most distressingly 
anxious. Never, never had Buz been 
away from home for a whole day and a 
whole night; and what puzzled Fury 
particularly, was that Buz had known 
it was coming and had said good-bye 
in that last hug which Fury hadn’t un¬ 
derstood at the time. It made a lump 
come in Fury’s throat to remember 
how he’d kicked and wriggled. 

And now that Fury started to think, 
he remembered other things which 
hadn’t meant anything to him at the 
time. He remembered that Buz had 
come downstairs all bright and shiny 
and wonderful, ready to go away. He 
remembered that several days before, 


86 


Buz and Fury 


all of Buz’s clothes had come out of 
the drawers and the wardrobe, and had 
been put away by Big Mistress, some 
in closets after being aired, and some 
in a grey box on the floor in Buz’s 
room. And he remembered that this 
box, which was new and didn’t belong 
there, was gone when he himself went 
in and found that Buz was gone. 

Why!—it hadn’t occurred to Fury 
until this very minute—that must have 
been what he heard those men carry¬ 
ing downstairs while he was locked in 
the cupboard. Strange men had come 
and carried the grey box away. For 
all he knew, they might have carried 
Buz away too, while no Fury was there 
to protect him! 

Fury had been roaming nervously 
over the lawn, but he now raced back 
to the gate. Pie had heard the men go 
out by that way, with their heavy boots 
clattering down the marble stairs and 
along the tile walk. 

He sat down once more, watching 
and listening. Buz always turned to 
the right; so did Big Master, and Big 


Buz and Fury 


87 


Mistress, and everybody. Even the 
people in the street seemed to go 
mostly that way; Fury had heard stray 
dogs say there was a river that ran 
along and cut off the street on the left. 
And Fury himself had noticed that 
such people as came from the right and 
went to the left would come back be¬ 
fore very long, if one had nothing bet¬ 
ter to do than to stay there and wait 
for them. So Buz must have gone to 
the right, too; and Fury might find 
him by slipping out and going on and 
on, straight up the street. He need 
only run as fast as ever he could, and 
he would be sure to catch up with Buz. 
Because he could run faster than Buz, 
though Buz was fleet; and so of course 
he could beat those lumbering men with 
the blundering boots who were carry¬ 
ing the weight of Buz and of Buz’s 
grey box in the bargain. 

Fury slipped his claws through a 
hole in the light wire gate, and pulled. 
It was tightly shut. He waited to think 
of something better. Instead, some¬ 
thing happened. A lady rang. He 


88 


BUZ AND FUBY 


went slyly to the right, up against the 
column into which the gate locked, hop¬ 
ing to slip out unnoticed when the lady 
came in. But it was old black Aunt 
Dimpsey who opened the gate, and she 
was as sly as any dog, and she shooed 
him off with her big checked apron. 
And when everybody had gone and he 
tried the gate again, it was safely 
closed. 

Always closed, that gate! Buz never 
let Fury go out in the street; he had 
such a large garden and so much grass 
of his own, that he didn’t need the 
dusty street to run in. Besides, Fury 
would have had to wear a collar, to go 
out, and he never had been willing to 
do that—Buz had bought a very re¬ 
markably handsome one for him, and 
he’d fretted against it just as if it had 
been an ordinary collar, and it had to 
be taken off. 

The first time he had been old 
enough to notice that Buz left him 
every morning, Fury had whined near 
the gate for a long while; but Buz had 
come back in the afternoon; and then 


Buz and Fury 


89 


Buz had continued to go every morn¬ 
ing, but always to come back each after¬ 
noon, so Fury got used to it. 

Or no, Buz didn’t go quite every day. 
Fury learned to know there were days 
when Buz wouldn’t go. Buz often won¬ 
dered how Fury could tell. And yet it 
was simple enough. When Buz was 
going away in the morning to come back 
in the afternoon, he always got up 
early, and hurried through his dressing, 
and put on the same clothes as other 
days, and ate his breakfast quickly and 
seemed to find it too hot, and caught up 
a bundle of books all strapped together; 
and then Fury ran ahead of him as far 
as the gate. But when Buz wasn’t in 
a hurry to get up, and looked for 
different clothes to put on, and ate his 
breakfast like anybody else, then Fury 
knew Buz would stay at home. 

That was how Fury had known Buz 
would stay at home the day before, 
with the only difference that Buz got 
up much more early than usual, which 
being a difference must mean no going 
out. And Buz had gone all the same. 


90 


Buz and Fury 


There was no trusting anything any 
more. But then, if Buz had been stolen 
by those wicked men it wasn’t his fault. 

And while Fury was waiting here, 
Buz was getting farther and farther 
away from him. Fury looked sadly up 
at the top of the gate. He couldn’t 
ever climb that, though he had climbed 
fig-trees. (There had been only one, 
and an easy one; but he’d climbed it 
twice, by nightlight and by sunlight, so 
perhaps he didn’t exaggerate very much 
when he said trees instead of tree.) So 
he looked sadly up at the top of the 
gate, and then just from idleness turned 
his head a little to one side, and 
brought his eyes down again. But when 
he turned to the side, that made him 
look at the fence instead of at the gate; 
and he saw something he hadn’t ever 
seen before, because he’d never noticed 
properly. The fence was higher than 
the gate; but instead of being all criss¬ 
cross wire like the gate, which left a 
dog no chance, it was of criss-cross wire 
resting on a brick wall. Certainly, he 
could never get over the gate; no use 


Buz and Fury 


91 


even in trying, there. But why not try 
the wall with the fence on top of it? 

He stood up on his hind legs against 
the wall. He could almost reach the 
top edge with the tips of his forepaws. 
Then he could jump up on it, perhaps; 
there was a clear ledge on which the 
wire rested. By a running jump, as 
he’d done for the fig-tree, he was sure 
to manage this. Once there, mightn’t 
he climb up the criss-cross wires, which 
didn’t stretch so very high, just as he’d 
climbed in the branches of the tree? 

Running away from the wall, he 
judged the height as well as he could, 
pulled himself together, and dashed for 
it. He missed the jump, knocking his 
head and skinning one paw. He tried 
again, and judged better, and almost 
got up, and didn’t hurt himself when he 
fell. The third jump—Hurrah!—landed 
him safe on the top of the wall. 

But he had cheered too soon. He 
hadn’t more than got up, when he lost 
his balance and tumbled down, landing 
in the middle of a large and beautiful 
rose-bush that grew beside the fence. 


92 


Buz and Fury 


(Fury agreed it was large, when he 
tried to get out, but he didn’t call it 
beautiful when it scratched him. “I 
wonder what makes Buz sniff at these 
things and look pleased,” he muttered. 
‘ 4 They ’re almost as bad as cats!”) 

Even though he was still in trouble, 
Fury had learned how to begin. He 
tried a fourth time, and got up, and 
stayed there. He was careful, now; he 
didn’t want to fall again, because he 
was getting tired, and was afraid of 
losing his nerve, and he knew the 
hardest thing of all had yet to be done. 

He reared up on his hind legs against 
the criss-cross wire, as he stood on the 
ledge of the wall, and stretched his 
forepaws as high as he could. This 
didn’t help; he couldn’t reach the real 
top. So he drew his forepaws down a 
little, and caught the claws in a 
diamond-shape made by the wires on a 
level with his chin. He pulled hard, 
while with one hind leg he felt for a 
resting-place in the wires under him 
which he couldn’t see; he kept the other 
hind paw on the ledge of the wall until 


Buz and Fury 


93 


he knew himself safe, and then he 
brought the second hind leg np to the 
level of the first, with his claws caught 
firmly in the wires. He straightened 
himself out, and again stretched up his 
forepaws, like a sailor climbing a rope- 
ladder up a mast. 

Luckily, his fall from the fig-tree had 
taught him that he must not look down. 
Sometimes he would look up, and some¬ 
times he would try not to see; hut he 
knew if he looked down he would grow 
dizzy. 

He was shaking with fear, and was 
very tired, too; hut he tried again, and 
got a little higher still. Then a dread¬ 
ful thing happened—one of his legs 
slipped through the wires, and he knew 
if he pulled it out he would lose his 
balance, and if he left it in he would 
stick there forever. During a minute 
or two, he didn’t dare move. Then his 
leg got so stiff that he had to do some¬ 
thing. He pulled himself upward with 
the claws of the paws that were free, 
not knowing what good he could do 
himself that way, hut just in order not 


94 


Buz and Fury 


to do nothing. And so, without know¬ 
ing how he had done it, he suddenly 
freed his leg and got as high as the 
top; and before he could slip down 
again, he succeeded in throwing his 
front legs and his chest over the other 
side. 

And then—why, then all he could do 
was to cling there, frightened almost to 
death. When he started to climb up, 
he hadn’t stopped to wonder how he 
could climb down. How could be 
scratch or pull when he was head down ? 

He was nipped on each side of his 
chest by the large spikes on the top of 
the fence—fortunately, they were large 
and not sharp, and not too close to¬ 
gether. He was safe as long as he 
could stay there without moving; but 
the fall into the street would be awful, 
and since he had to fall, he couldn’t 
have any choice in the matter. And 
while wondering what would happen 
next, he had time to think about the 
street he was trying to get into. 

The street was a wild place, full of 
strange people and carriages and 


Buz and Fury 


95 


horses, and of bad boys who teased him 
and threw stones at him when nobody 
was looking, and of stray dogs who 
used dreadful language and snarled and 
quarrelled and misbehaved generally. 
These stray dogs talked, too, about 
things called dog-catchers, because they 
nabbed dogs and carried them away 
nobody knew where, hut so far that 
they never came hack any more—that 
is, the dogs didn't but the catchers did. 
Some of the dogs had lost their 
brothers or sisters or best friends that 
way, and had to stand by and see them 
go. Probably they had fought for 
them, but were too gentlemanly to brag 
about that. Fury wondered what he 
would have done. He hoped he would 
have fought to help save a friend. But 
it wasn't nice to have to think about. 
And that was what he was risking now! 

As he thought of it, Fury forgot 
where he was, and shrank back a little. 
As he did that, he suddenly felt him¬ 
self falling backwards. Quick as a 
flash, and not stopping to think any 
more, he made one last effort with what 


96 


Buz and Fury 


was left to him of strength and nerve. 
Next moment he did fall, rolling and 
tumbling and scuffling down—but head 
first, and on the outside. 

A moment later he landed in a 
bruised and terrified heap on the side¬ 
walk of the public street. 


CHAPTER VIII 
The Dog Catcher 

Fury picked himself up almost im¬ 
mediately, fell down, got up again; 
sneezed, staggered from one side to the 
other several times; and then braced 
himself as well as he could with his 
four legs out in four different directions 
while the world seemed to turn round 
him very fast. When things began to 
steady, he was glad to find he had no 
bones broken. He thought, though, 
that he must have broken the flagstone 
on which he had dropped — it was 
cracked from end to end, as anybody 
could see. 

No matter! He’d got over, he hadn’t 
been hurt, and he could start up the 
street after Buz. He had a homesick 
feeling, now that he was for the first 
time out in the great world all alone. 
He shot a forlorn look through the 
gate, and saw the familiar garden and 
the safe, comfortable house. But in- 


98 


Buz and Fury 


stead of discouraging him, it helped 
him by making him think of Buz very 
hard. He turned firmly away, and 
dashed off. 

Not being used to going out, he was 
wise enough to stop, after a few yards, 
to make sure he’d gone the right way. 
And it so happened that, being dizzy, 
he’d gone the wrong way. 

After getting his bearings, he started 
off once more. He held his nose to the 
ground, but didn’t scent anything there 
that would help him. I’ve said he 
recognized Buz by a clean sort of 
smell. But there wasn’t the smallest 
suggestion of anything clean about this 
street. All he could do was to run 
straight ahead, and as fast as possible, 
just as he’d planned to do. So he 
thrust his little white head out in front 
of him, with his nose up like the bow-i 
sprit of a ship, and he ran so hard that 
his chest seemed to hit the ground at 
each leap. 

Ban so hard—at each leap? Exactly. 
Fury always picked up a hind leg, first 
one, then the other, when he went 


Buz and Fury 


99 


gently; I’ve said that’s a way 
Australian fox-terriers have. But an¬ 
other way they have is to lose no time 
shuffling their short legs when they are 
in a great hurry. They then go in 
leaps, like the kangaroos they chase 
over the Australian plains. Fury hadn’t 
ever chased a kangaroo; he wouldn’t 
have known one if he’d met it at the 
next street comer; but his grand¬ 
fathers and grandmothers had chased 
them. The instinct was in his blood to 
run so; and if ever the day came when 
he should have to hunt anything be¬ 
sides cats and rats, why, then the hunt¬ 
ing instinct—but I’ll wait for that day 
to come, before I tell you any more 
about it. 

In a few leaps he passed the wall of 
the house next to his. Then a surpris¬ 
ing thing happened. The sidewalk, in¬ 
stead of going straight on as he’d ex¬ 
pected, stopped when it reached the 
corner of that next house. His street 
was cut off by another street which 
went across it. This was enough to 
puzzle poor Fury, who hadn’t been pre- 


100 


Buz and Fury 


pared for anything of the kind. But if 
this was surprising, next minute some¬ 
thing happened which was positively 
terrifying. 

A huge object came rushing along 
the new street with a roaring of wheels 
and a clanging of bells. It was some¬ 
thing between a carriage and a house, 
in looks; it hadn’t any horse, it was so 
big that Buz’s whole family could have 
got into it with all the servants, and 
left room to spare; it went as fast as a 
ball thrown hard, and it followed two 
bright streaks of metal which lay out 
before and behind it. The noise 
stunned Fury so, and the dust dazed 
him so, and the quivering stones shook 
him so, and the newness of it all 
frightened him so, that he crouched 
down, panting, where he'd landed after 
his last leap. 

A second later, he knew the awful 
thing had rushed past him, and had 
missed crushing him by not more than 
a few inches. 

Fury crept back towards the corner 
house, and wedged himself in against 


Buz and Fury 


101 


the wall. He knew now, by the sound, 
that these were the things he heard 
passing, passing, every few minutes, all 
day long and part of the night, when 
he was safe in his own garden. Surely, 
the open street was no place for a poor 
little dog to wander about. He turned 
towards home. But the thought of Buz 
stopped him. Buz, too, was alone in 
these dangerous streets; or if not alone, 
was then worse than alone, stolen by 
the men who had stolen the grey box. 

Of course Fury must go on. He 
looked quickly all round him. Why, 
his street ran on again at the other 
side of this one! Fury bounded off 
once more. 

At the next cross-street, he remem¬ 
bered and understood. (He knew what 
it was meant for, at least, even if he 
didn’t know what it was called.) So 
he kept straight on. But after three 
cross-streets, he had to stop. A wall 
at the end cut off his street, really, this 
time. If he didn’t want to go back, he 
must turn to the right or to the left. 
Buz must have turned to the right or 


102 


BUZ AND FUKY 


to the left. But which? Fury put down 
his nose, and sniffed. No, nothing 
clean, nothing reminding him of Buz. 
And to think that if he hadn’t lost a 
day in sulking and a night in moping, 
he might have got there to see which 
way Buz went! 

If he made a mistake now, he couldn’t 
ever correct it. Buz would go off for 
ever and ever one way, while he went 
off for ever and ever the other way. 
Fury looked down the cross-street, and 
then up again, and then down again, to 
make sure, and then up again, to make 
sure again. And when he had finished, 
he wasn’t any surer than before. 

The street was very much the same, 
whichever way he turned. Only, there 
was a big tree with knotty roots down , 
and a big black carriage standing in 
front of a house up. Fury would have 
gone towards the tree, because there 
might have been a cat in the branches 
or a rat in the roots. But the men with 
Buz had probably gone towards the 
carriage because they might drive it. 

Fury had made up his mind to go up 


Buz and Fury 


103 


the street, because of the carriage, 
when a troop of dogs came charging 
towards him from the other side, rais¬ 
ing so much dust as they ran that not 
more than half of them could be seen— 
not more than half their whole num¬ 
ber, and not more than half of each 
dog. (Perhaps that ought to work out 
that only a quarter of them could be 
seen. Pm not quite sure; Pll try it 
with a pencil and a piece of paper, the 
first chance I get.) 

There was a great mixing of dogs in 
the pack. Fury, as a well-bred house¬ 
dog, hadn’t begun to suspect how many 
different kinds of dogs lived in the 
streets. He saw big brown dogs and 
little black dogs, big grey dogs and 
little yellow dogs, big white dogs and 
little spotty dogs, big dirty dogs and— 
and little dirty dogs, too. In fact, they 
were all dirty, and ragged, and hungry - 
looking, and very rude in their talk and 
behavior. Fury didn’t like them; but 
he thought they might give him news 
of Buz, so he stood still, waiting for 
them. 


104 


Buz and Fury 


They stopped when they got near 
him. Many growled, some harked, a 
few wagged their tails, one pretended 
to snap at him, and all stared very 
hard. They seemed not to be sure what 
they were going to do, and Fury was 
trying to pick out the least villainous 
one of the crowd—(it wasn’t easy)— 
to ask a question about Buz, when an 
ugly little yellow cur sneaked up quite 
close and thrust his mean nose at 
Fury’s chin. 

4 ‘Who brushed yo’ hair for yo’?” he 
sneered. It wasn’t clever, but the little 
yellow cur only wanted to be rude. 

Fury’s fine lips parted scornfully as 
he got ready to answer. He would have 
done better to speak to the leader of 
the pack, as he’d intended to do, and 
not lose time showing scorn to a 
wretched little dog who couldn’t help 
being rude because nobody had ever 
taught him better. But before Fury 
could speak at all, the ugly little yellow 
cur was at him again with other per¬ 
sonal remarks, and after each the whole 
pack chimed in hideous chorus. 


Buz and Fury 


105 


The Ugly Little Yellow Cur: “Oh, 
my, ain’t yo’ got pretty white teeth!” 

The Pack: “Who cleaned ’em for 
you?” 

The U . L. Y. C “If you ever get 
in a fight with me, my boy, I’ll break 
a few of ’em out, and then you won’t 
be so proud!” 

The Pack: “And oh, who’ll put ’em 
back for you?” 

The U . L. Y. C.: “But—Hello!— 
Ho! ho! I see you got yo ’ tail snapped 
off! What do you do to show Master 
you’re pleased, when he’s finished 
kissin’ yo’? Wag yo’ hind legs, I’ll 
bet!” 

The Pack: “Mebbe he thinks that’s 
what hind legs was made for!” 

The U. L. Y. C.: “Oh, no, he don’t! 
He knows hind legs was made to run 
away with. Eh, Mr. Prettyface? WTiy 
don’t you run now, if you’re too much 
of a coward to take on a fight with 
me?” 

The Pack: “Too scared to run 
straight, I guess!” 

The U. L. Y. C.: “Well, crooked or 


106 


Buz and Fury 


straight, I tell yo’ this—if yo’ stay 
there starin’ at me that way, you 
booby, I’ll eat yo’ up before yo’ knows 
what’s struck yo’!” 

The Pack: i ‘That’s right, Bubs! 
You eat him up!” 

The U. L. Y. C.: “Pah! He smells 
of soap! Think I want to get that sort 
of dirty stuff in my mouth 1 ?” 

The Pack: “Soap! What a beast! 
Oh, let’s drown him!” 

It had all come so quickly, and was 
such a new kind of talk to him, that 
Fury hadn’t found a word to say. He 
was so angry, that several times he’d 
almost flown at the throat of the ugly 
little yellow cur; but each time he re¬ 
membered Buz. If he got to fighting 
with these rude dogs who really weren’t 
worth bothering about, he might lose 
his only chance to find Buz. 

But the ugly little yellow cur hadn’t 
finished. He came up still closer be¬ 
fore spitting out these dreadful words: 

“Call yo’self a dog? You’re nothin’ 
but a sneakin’ little girl baby!” 

Next instant, the street was full of 


Buz and Fury 


107 


squeals, and they didn’t come from 
Fury, either. Some came from the ugly 
little yellow cur, whom Fury had 
caught by the back of the neck as if 
he’d been a rat. Some came from 
another cur, a dirty grey one, who’d 
jumped in unfairly and caught Fury by 
a hind leg—perhaps to see if it would 
wag. Some came from a tiny black- 
and-tan called Mamie, who got knocked 
over in the scuffle, and was so frightened 
that she lost her wits and bit the dirty 
grey dog by mistake, and then got bit¬ 
ten by a big brown she-dog. And some 
came from the heavy-jawed pointer who 
seemed to be the leader of the— 

But what did this mean? There was 
a sudden silence, followed by a sudden 
bolting—a dozen different boltings in as 
many different directions. The dirty 
grey cur let go of Fury’s hind leg; a 
spotty dog, who’d been closing in to 
join the fight, moved off as quick as he 
could; and the ugly little yellow cur 
jerked himself so violently out of 
Fury’s jaws that he very nearly did 
break some of Fury’s teeth, but instead 


108 


Buz and Fury 


he only helped them to tear out a piece 
of his own skin. It was all so peculiar, 
and was over so quickly, that Fury was 
even more surprised than he’d been by 
the attack. 

Could he have been so brave that 
he’d scattered a dozen dogs—perhaps 
two dozen? Fury hadn’t counted them 
when they were close to him, but the 
farther they got away, the more they 
seemed to have been. 

But—but what was the meaning of 
these fresh squeals? They made Fury’s 
hair bristle, though he didn’t know 
what they were. Ah! The tiny black- 
and-tan called Mamie had run straight 
into the arms of two men. She was 
crying out with fear and with pain, and 
between her yells she was calling to 
her friends to save her. Several of 
them, in their stampede, passed only a 
yard or two away from her; but their 
only thought was for running, and they 
swerved to run faster. 

So that was what came of being a 
vulgar dog! You made personal re¬ 
marks to people you met, you picked 


Buz and Fury 


109 


fights with people who hadn’t done a 
thing to yon, yon jumped, a lot of yon, 
on to one who was smaller than most 
of yon—and then yon bolted and de¬ 
serted a little girl-friend in tronble! 
The cowards! 

Fury’s blood was still np from the 
fight just finished; he flew to Mamie’s 
rescue, and canght one of her enemies 
by the heel. Next minnte, the other 
man had grabbed Fury by both hind 
legs, had kicked him full in the stomach, 
and had jerked him np into the air. 
Then the man swung him along as if 
he’d been a rabbit, to the big black 
carriage which stood in front of a 
house; he opened a door at the back, 
flung him in, the other man flung 
Mamie in, and the door closed with a 
bang. 

It was very dark, but Fury could 
smell other dogs, and hear them, too— 
some moaning, some sobbing, some 
breathing heavily as if their hearts 
were breaking. 

The most awful fear he’d ever known 
in all his life came over Fury. 


110 


Buz and Fury 


“What—what is it?” he asked. 
“Where are we?” 

“Oh, don’t yon know? Don’t you 
know?” wailed Mamie. She choked, 
and then shrieked out desperately: 
“IT’S THE DOG-CATCHER!” 


CHAPTER IX 
In the Pound 

Little Mamie had no sooner spoken 
those dreadful words, than the carriage 
started off with a jerk which threw 
Fury down in a corner. He didn’t try 
to get up, hut lay there too badly 
frightened to move. He felt Mamie 
creep up against him, as if for com¬ 
fort. He gathered together what was 
left of his strength, in order to get 
away from her. It was all her fault, 
the little fool! 

But it struck him that if he did draw 
away now, he would be more cowardly 
and more ungenerous than the curs in 
the pack whom he’d scorned for run¬ 
ning. Those curs had known what 
Mamie’s cries meant, and he hadn’t; so 
he couldn’t say he had been braver than 
they. He’d told himself, when he first 
heard about dog-catchers, that he hoped 
he would stand by a friend; and he’d 
stood by little Mamie who had bitten 


112 


Buz and Fury 


one of the dogs biting him. He wasn’t 
sorry, not even though he knew no dog 
came back from the place where the 
catcher was taking them. Besides, now 
that Buz was lost, what did anything 
matter? So he stayed quite still, and 
let Mamie get what comfort she could 
from snuggling close to him. With his 
nose buried in his paws, he didn’t move 
again until he was rolled out of place 
by the jerk when the carriage stopped. 

The door opened after a while, and 
men caught the dogs roughly and threw 
them down a trap. Fury and Mamie 
found themselves in a large room which 
had a sort of wire fence on one side. 
There were several dogs already in it 
when the new party arrived. Besides 
the trap through which they had 
dropped, there was another trap on the 
farther side; all the dogs seemed to 
keep away from it. Fury went to it, 
just to be alone, and lay down. 

He had eaten nothing since the day 
before, he had watched all night near 
the gate, he had tired himself trying to 
climb the fence and then running even 


Buz and Fury 


113 


before he had got into the fight. He 
merely intended to rest a little, now; 
but he slipped off to sleep. 

From the way he felt when he woke 
np, he judged he must have slept a long 
time. He wasn’t at all rested; the air 
was close, and the other dogs made a 
great deal of noise. His sleep really 
hadn’t done him much good. Or per¬ 
haps he oughtn’t to say that. It had 
kept him from remembering how 
wretched he was without Buz. 

Mamie made signs to him from a 
distance. He got wearily up, and went 
to her. 

“I couldn’t bear to go near that 
dreadful door,” she said. 

Then he understood it must be the 
door through which dogs went when 
they weren’t to come back any more. 

‘‘You see,” Mamie explained, “I’ve 
been here before.” 

“Been here before?” Fury repeated, 
in great surprise. “Why, I thought 
nobody ever-” 

“That depends,” said Mamie. “If 
you’ve got a master, he may come for 


114 


Buz and Fuky 


you. Last time I was here, I had a 
mistress who came for me. But I 
haven’t any mistress now. There isn’t 
any hope for me, unless somebody sees 
me from the other side of the fence, and 
likes me, and takes me away. That has 
happened to dogs while I was waiting 
here. Only, as a rule, people don’t take 
strays. You don’t look like a stray. 
Somebody will probably come for you. ’ ’ 

Fury shook his head. 

“You are right, I’m not a stray any 
more than you are,” he said. “But I’m 
like you in another way, too. I haven’t 
any master any more.” And Fury told 
Mamie, in as few words as possible, how 
Buz had disappeared from home. 

* * With a grey box, you say ? ’ ’ Mamie 
asked excitedly. “But they always 
come back, when grey boxes go with 
them—and brown boxes do just as 
well! It’s only the people who go 
without boxes who slip away so you 
never see them again. It’s the boxes 
that bring masters and mistresses 
back.” 

How could Fury make this common 


Buz and Fury 


115 


tiny black-and-tan understand what he 
was to Bnz and what Buz was to him? 
He didn’t want to speak at all, because 
it was no use. But she was waiting 
for an answer, and he didn’t want to 
offend her, so he said simply: 

‘ ‘ My master never left me for a 
single day.” 

“Oh, that’s because you are new; I 
know all about that,” Mamie returned 
cheerfully. “It’s bound to come, 
though. And it hurts the first time, but 
you get used to it. / know!” 

Poor little thing! She didn’t know 
Buz, Fury thought. He would talk 
about something else. 

She had darted off before noticing 
that he didn’t want to answer, and had 
pressed her nose eagerly against the 
wire fence. Some people were passing 
on the other side. Out of sheer 
curiosity, and to while away the time, 
Fury followed her. 

A lady with a little girl stopped 
opposite them. Fury saw they were 
discussing Mamie and himself. Pride 
prompted him to raise his drooping 


116 


Buz and Fury 


ears and tail, and to stand with as 
much style as hunger and fatigue and 
misery would allow. Mamie did more: 
she reared up on her slim hind legs 
and begged prettily: so prettily that 
the little girl laughed, but so pathetically 
that tears started to the lady’s eyes. 

The lady pointed to Mamie, and 
talked very earnestly; the little girl 
looked steadily at Fury and talked very 
fast and loud. Presently tears came to 
the little girl’s eyes too, but they 
weren’t sweet tears of compassion, 
they were bitter tears of disappoint¬ 
ment. The lady tried once more, say¬ 
ing, “ Helen . . . Helen ...” and 
pointing to Mamie, who still sat beg¬ 
ging, though now so tired that she 
pawed the air and sometimes toppled 
over and had to sit up and begin again. 
But the little girl would look at nothing 
but Fury, and the lady too at last 
looked towards him, and they stopped 
talking. The little girl smiled, once 
more; but the mother had not got over 
her sadness. 

Fury was watching the scene idly, 


Buz and Fury 


117 


because be had nothing better to do, 
when suddenly the meaning of it struck 
him. The lady wanted to save Mamie 
who was begging so pitifully for life; 
while Helen wanted him because he was 
an Australian fox-terrier. As if he 
would call that being saved—to go to 
another place where he couldn’t ever 
see Buz any more! 

Was it even worth while to live, 
without Buz? And here was Mamie 
who wanted to live, for the mere sake 
of living. 

Fury knew what he must do. 

With a fierce growl, he sprang to¬ 
wards the wire fence and snapped at 
Helen’s hand, glaring and snarling. He 
missed her spread-out fingers by six 
inches—he who could bite a running 
rat by just the part of the neck he 
chose! Of course he could have gone 
much nearer without hurting her; but 
he wouldn’t take any risks, since he 
wasn’t in good condition, and he was 
sure that what he had done would be 
enough to frighten her half out of her 
shoes. 


118 


Buz and Fury 


She screamed, jumped away from the 
wires, and flew to her maman’s arms. 
The lady petted her for a while; then 
called a man, pointed severely at Fury, 
and pointed smilingly at Mamie. The 
man nodded and went away. 

Mamie flopped forlornly over on the 
floor, and then turned against Fury. 

“Oh! oh! Why couldn’t you keep 
your temper?” she wailed. “You are 
the meanest thing! You scared them 
away just because it was me they 
wanted instead of you!” 

Fury didn’t speak. He didn’t try to 
explain. He didn’t even look reproach¬ 
ful. He only crept back to his corner 
near the trap, and lay down. His rea¬ 
son was simply that he’d been there 
before and so it was one familiar spot 
in this dreary place. But Mamie mis¬ 
understood that too, for she was in the 
nasty sort of humor when everything 
seems to have been done on purpose to 
spite you. 

“That’s right!” she cried peevishly. 
“Go and sulk near that door and re- 


Buz and Fury 


119 


mind me of what’s going to happen. 
All your fault, too!” 

It was hard, when Fury was in the 
pound because of her, and had just 
thrown away his own chance for life in 
order to let her go free. But he only 
sighed and closed his eyes. 

He didn’t look up again until some¬ 
body came in, and he heard a scuffle 
and a squeal. A man had caught 
Mamie; she was frightened, but Fury 
knew it was all right, because he recog¬ 
nized the man to whom the lady had 
spoken. Fury closed his eyes once 
more, and didn’t even open them when 
the man kicked him in passing. Fury 
wished he could have closed his ears 
as well as his eyes. Mamie, still not 
knowing she was saved, was making 
perfectly dreadful remarks about him— 
remarks that weren’t only unfair, but 
very vulgar. She probably couldn’t 
help that; and she was a little thing, 
and frightened into hysterics; so Fury 
told himself that she didn’t know what 
she was doing, and he mustn’t mind 
her. But it hurt, all the same. 


120 


Buz and Fury 


No use to go near the fence again. 
He couldn’t have a second chance, and 
it didn’t matter anyway, since he had 
lost Buz. So he let the other dogs do 
their best, as they harked or begged or 
jumped to attract attention, while he 
lay quite still in his dark corner. 

Once, he thought he saw somebody 
like Big Mistress, though he didn’t 
know the dress, and there were so many 
dogs in the way that he couldn’t be 
positive, and so many smells in the air 
that scenting couldn’t help. He tried 
to struggle to his feet. But the man 
who took Mamie away had kicked him 
on the head, and he was now dizzy be¬ 
sides being tired and hungry and dis¬ 
couraged. After reeling for a few 
inches, he fell back in his place, forgot 
why it was he’d tried to get up, and 
dropped off to sleep once more before 
he knew what he was about. 

Yelps of distress from the other dogs 
woke him with a start. 

The man who’d saved Mamie had 
come back. This time, he was behaving 
very terribly. He had already kicked 


Buz and Fury 


121 


several dogs, and was making straight 
for Fury, waving a big stick. 

Then Fury, who had believed he 
didn’t care to live since he’d lost Buz, 
found out suddenly that he cared very 
much indeed. He remembered what 
Mamie had said about grey boxes 
which brought their masters hack. 
Suppose Buz were to come home after 
all, and there were no Fury left to 
greet him? 

When the man was within a couple 
of strides of him, Fury sprang to his 
feet and faced round, prepared to fight 
to the last ounce of his strength. 






CHAPTER X 
Hanged on the Fence 

The man had seen things like that be¬ 
fore—or thought he had. He cried out 
fiercely, he stamped his foot, he 
brandished his stick, and he took an¬ 
other stride. 

But Fury was already on the 
opposite side of the room. 

The man crossed quickly over. 

Fury slipped back to where he had 
been. 

At this, the man changed tactics. He 
came straight on, with legs and arms 
stretched out until he looked like a star¬ 
fish, but looked very fine and threaten¬ 
ing too. He didn’t look like a star-, 
fish any more, though, and didn’t look 
fine or threatening either, when Fury 
shot between his legs like a big white 
ball and put the whole width of the 
room between them. 

Fury was getting short of wind; he 
knew he could not do much more than 


124 


Buz and Fury 


make one last good effort. The man 
crouched down before coming forward 
again. Fury squarely dashed at him, 
taking one of his wonderful kangaroo 
leaps. He had aimed true. He struck 
the man full in the chest and knocked 
him sprawling. 

But the man, as he fell, reached 
swiftly out and caught Fury by a hind 
leg. Then Fury knew the fight was 
ended. 

All this while, Fury had made little 
noise, save for an occasional low growl. 
His head was ringing, though, with a 
sound like the grinding of gongs; and 
in the midst of the grinding it seemed 
to him that he heard Buz call out, again 
and again, in a voice shriller than 
usual. He thought he heard that voice 
once more. He had done his best, and 
had been beaten at it, and he wouldn’t 
be cowardly if he asked for help now. 
Throwing back his head, he uttered a 
long, despairing howl. 

Was he dreaming? An answer came, 
again as if in Buz’s voice, though 
higher-pitched. The man held him 


Buz and Fury 


125 


firmly and advanced towards the fatal 
door. Fnry howled again, for the last 
time. And then, as the man turned to 
carry him out, his eyes fell on the wire 
fence. 

And there he saw- 

Buz’s mother, Big Mistress! 

He knew, now, that he had seen her 
before falling asleep, though he was too 
weary and puzzled to understand. He 
knew that he could have slept only a 
minute or two, while she stood there 
looking at all the dogs. And he knew 
that she had sent the man to save him, 
and that after calling Mamie a little 
fool he’d been a bigger fool himself, 
fighting and screaming against the man 
sent to save him! 

Three minutes later, Fury was in the 
arms of Big Mistress. They drove 
home together in the carriage, and his 
heart went thump, thump, at the 
thought Buz would be waiting for him. 

But there was no Buz at the gate; 
and there was no Buz in the garden; 
and there was no Buz in the house; and 
Buz’s room was all wrapped in white 


126 


Buz and Fury 


sheets, as when Fury had last seen it. 

Fury ate his dinner ravenously, 
scarcely stopping to wag his tail—or 
his hind legs—to old black Aunt 
Dimpsey, by way of thanks. Then he 
slept soundly for what was left of the 
afternoon and all through the night. 
Then he moped about the garden for an 
hour or two in the early morning light. 
Then he went over the house again as 
soon as the doors were opened. And 
then he couldn’t stand this sort of 
thing any longer. 

He leaped and climbed the fence, as 
before, and started out in the street to 
find Buz, dog-catcher or no dog- 
catcher. 

At the comer, though, a glimpse of a 
big black carriage froze all the bravery 
out of him, and sent him running as 
fast as he could go back to his own 
gate. There he stopped, shivering, with 
his tail between his legs. (That is, it 
drooped down so that it would have 
hung between his legs if it had been 
long enough to reach them.) He tried 
to jump the fence from that side, but 


Buz and Fury 


127 


couldn’t manage it; tlie sidewalk kept 
him from taking a proper spring, and 
he didn’t have anything to excite him 
and draw him on. There was no chance 
of finding Bnz inside; and besides, a 
dog is never so sure of himself out of 
his own garden as in it. Presently the 
coachman let him in, and he was 
carried in disgrace before Big Mistress. 

After that, he was taken to the car¬ 
riage-house and whipped. 

Whipped, and not by Buz. Whipped 
by a coachman who didn’t love him and 
wasn’t gentle with him. Such a dis¬ 
grace had never come to him before. 
He was so mortified that he was glad 
they locked him in the carriage-house 
when it was finished. That spared him 
the pain of showing his face before the 
world. 

They kept him locked in for several 
days. He stayed quite still for all that 
time, and refused to eat. Then they 
put a collar on him and turned him 
loose. 

So he jumped the fence, and went 
out again to hunt for Buz. 


128 


BUZ AND FUBY 


At the same unlucky first corner, a 
policeman spied him and made for him; 
whistled to him, tried to coax him; 
chased him, when he began to run. 

Fury could beat him at running, 
easily. 

But the policeman didn’t play fair. 
He threw a piece of brick which hit 
Fury on the flank and knocked him into 
a heap. And so Fury was caught. 

Luckily, there was no big black 
carriage in sight. The policeman looked 
at Fury’s collar—looked at it as Buz 
looked at books—and then went, with 
Fury under his arm, to ring at Fury’s 
own gate. 

The coachman came, and took Fury, 
and spanked him then and there, out 
in the street before the policeman— 
(could anything have been more dis¬ 
graceful?)—and carried him to Big 
Mistress. The policeman was waiting 
at the gate, meanwhile, and Fury feared 
he should be sent back to the pound as 
punishment. But the policeman went 
away after being given some money. 

As for Fury, he was whipped again, 


Buz and Fury 


129 


and locked up again; and as soon as he 
was allowed ont from the carriage- 
house, he got over the fence again and 
started to hunt for Buz. 

He knew it would probably end 
either in the pound, or in the carriage- 
house after a whipping; and he knew 
that the days he had lost left him 
almost no hope of finding his master. 
But he had got it into his head that he 
was doing his duty, and there was no¬ 
body to make him understand things 
as Buz could, and so he behaved as he 
felt he ought to behave. 

Mamie crossed him, wearing a 
beautiful Christmas-tree sort of collar 
with shiny things on it that jangled. 
She was prancing like a little horse, 
throwing out her feet at each step, and 
mincing along in the most absurd way, 
though tied by a leather thong to the 
hand of her young mistress. Fury went 
up to speak to her, and she cried out: 

“Oh! It’s you! So you 'were a stray, 
after all! I knew it!” 

Helen stopped a moment to look down 
on him, and she smiled, and shook her 


130 


Buz and Fury 


thick, curly brown hair which flowed 
down all over her shoulders, and she 
said: 

“You poor, nice, pretty doggie. Isn’t 
there anybody to take care of you?” 

But a tall lady who was with her, and 
who was not her mother, said sharply: 

1 ‘ Helen, how often must I tell you not 
to play with stray dogs? It’s dan¬ 
gerous !’’ 

And she hurried Helen away, Mamie 
helping by pulling on the thong as hard 
as she could. 

The way Mamie had behaved hurt 
Fury’s feelings, just a little; but Helen 
had spoken kindly. This gave him 
something pleasant to think about an 
hour later when he was nabbed by the 
dog-catcher and driven otf once more 
to the pound. 

This time, he expected somebody to 
come and take him home. Sure enough, 
the coachman came. And Fury was 
again whipped and again locked up. 

He had been whipped and locked up 
so often, that he didn’t care any more, 
and was scarcely afraid any more. 


Buz and Fury 


131 


From nervousness, be would cry out; 
and he would pretend to mind each 
stroke very much, hoping to stop the 
next; but he knew this sort of thing 
must happen, just as he knew he would 
be burned if he touched anything too 
hot. When Buz had punished him, it 
had only been when Fury knew he had 
been naughty, and so Fury understood. 
But he couldn’t understand now. If he 
wasn’t doing his duty when he went out 
to try to save his master, then what 
was a dog’s duty, anyhow? It seemed 
to him that Big Mistress and the coach¬ 
man were unreasonable and cruel. And 
the more they punished him, the more 
he felt he must bear it for Buz’s sake 
and go on all the same, since nobody 
cared except himself. 

They invented something new to 
torment him. He had been a prisoner, 
before; now, he was a convict. He was 
turned free in the garden, but with a 
block of wood dragging after him by a 
chain tied to his collar. It was a new 
collar, ugly but strong. He’d rubbed 
the first one off and lost it, against a 


132 


Buz and Fury 


tree in the street, and had judged him¬ 
self very clever. He couldn’t under¬ 
stand that this was why he had gone 
to the pound a second time, instead of 
being brought straight home by a 
policeman to get a reward. 

Fury guessed that the wooden drag 
was meant to keep him from jumping 
the fence. But the more they persecuted 
him, the more he longed for Buz who 
wouldn’t allow this sort of behavior 
against him. He waited for a moment 
when nobody was watching; and then 
he tried to leap the fence once more. 

Jumping wasn’t easy, with that piece 
of wood dangling from his collar. Nine 
times, he missed the top of the low 
brick wall. Three times, he fell after 
getting up there. At his fourteenth 
effort, he got to the top of the wire 
fence, and let himself tumble over:— 
with all his experience of fence-climb¬ 
ing, he had never been able to do more 
on that particular fence than let him¬ 
self fall on the outside when he reached 
the top from the inside. It was always 
dangerous, tired as he was by jumping 


Buz and Fury 


133 


and missing and scratching and climb¬ 
ing up. But what could he expect now 
that a wooden weight dangled from his 
collar? He hadn’t thought about that. 
He knew only that he wanted to reach 
the top; and he managed to do it. 
Then he knew he wanted to tumble 
over. And he managed to do that too. 

But though he got over, the block of 
wood didn’t. 

He was left dangling on one side of 
the fence, with the wood dangling on 
the other. He was strangling, and 
couldn’t even scream for help. He 
turned sick, he grew dizzy, and the sea 
roared in his ears. Breathing got 
harder and harder, he could take only 
little gulps of air which didn’t do him 
any good because they seemed to stay 
in his mouth. He felt himself smother¬ 
ing, and all he could do was to twitch 
his hind legs and forepaws, weakly. 
Then everything grew black. 

A sound roused him for a short in¬ 
stant. It was Big Mistress calling out 
of a window. But too late. 


134 


Buz and Fury 


It changed to a pleasant dream. 

He thought he was twirling in the 
grass with Buz. 

“ Round and round and round we 

go -” 

“Wherever you fall, it’s sure to 
be-” 

Buz’s voice was in his ears, Buz’s 
face was before his eyes—he believed 
himself in Buz’s arms at last, and, a 
happy little dog, he glided away from 
the world. 


CHAPTER XI 
Togethek Again 

Where was he? 

Fury breathed, though he had stopped 
breathing; he dreamed, though he had 
stopped dreaming; he suffered, though 
he had stopped suffering. 

What did it mean? 

He tried to raise his head, but he 
couldn’t—he was being choked, he re¬ 
membered. Yet he didn’t feel just as 
he did the last time he’d felt anything. 
Wliy was he being choked? Who had 
choked him? He remembered about it, 
because he still felt the weight on his 
neck; but he didn’t know what weight 
it was, nor how it had got there. 

He tried to open his eyes. That was 
easier than moving his head, and he 
succeeded. Yes, it was a dream. He 
was dreaming that he was in Buz’s 
room. But it was an ugly dream, be¬ 
cause Buz wasn’t there. 


136 


Buz and Fury 


Then he got heavy and drowsy again, 
and forgot about everything. 

When he opened his eyes once more, 
he breathed better, and things looked 
more real, and he didn’t have as much 
pain in his throat. He began to re¬ 
member, too. He’d hanged himself on 
the fence, trying to find Buz—and they 
must have come and saved him just in 
the nick of time. 

Big Mistress held him in her lap, in 
Buz’s room, and old black Aunt Dimp- 
sey stood near with a bowl of some¬ 
thing for him to drink. He tried to 
drink it, just to show he was grateful, 
but he didn’t have strength enough. He 
lay back limply in Big Mistress’s lap, 
and closed his eyes while she stroked 
his head and made him feel comfy. 

As well as he could remember after¬ 
wards, he lived for several days in 
Buz’s room. They kept him there at 
first because he was ill, and there was 
somebody near him most of the time, 
either Big Mistress or old black Aunt 
Dimpsey; but even when he got better, 
and didn’t need anybody to stay near 


Buz and Fury 


137 


him any more, they kept him there. So 
he knew he was a prisoner, though it 
didn’t seem like a punishment any 
more. But kind though they were to 
him, he couldn’t he happy. Buz was so 
constantly in his mind that he couldn’t 
think sensibly of anything else. Buz 
would even get mixed in with his 
dreams, and either he would be so glad 
to find Buz that he would wake himself 
up, or else he would he so distressed at 
losing Buz that he would wake up all 
the same. He couldn’t sleep quietly, 
and he didn’t have any appetite, and 
he didn’t care very much one way or 
the other, and he let cats quarrel on 
the garden walls and rats race across 
the garden squeaking, and he didn’t so 
much as raise his ears to listen better. 

At last some one came near the room 
with a step that told him he was going 
to be set free. He crept forward and 
crouched as close to the door as he 
could. When the door was opened, he 
was picked up, instead of being allowed 
to run; and then he was carried down¬ 
stairs. 


138 


Buz and Fury 


Big Mistress sat in the carriage, out¬ 
side. On the front of the carriage was 
a box like Buz’s—smaller, and brown 
instead of grey, but the same sort of 
box. Fury was anxious, for a moment, 
wondering where he would be taken, 
when he remembered that Mamie had 
told him people always came back when 
they started off with boxes. It was 
perfectly true that when he himself 
had got lost, he’d gone without a box. 
Big Mistress took him on her lap, and 
the carriage rolled away with them. 

When they left the carriage, they 
passed through a tremendous house 
filled with people and dust and noise; 
and so they came to a string of the 
biggest carriages Fury had ever seen— 
bigger than the ones on shiny metal 
streaks which had frightened him so 
badly the first time he ran away from 
home. 

Big Mistress took Fury in her arms 
and climbed up some steps into one of 
the carriages. They didn’t have it all 
to themselves, like their own carriage; 
there were more people inside than 


Buz and Fury 


139 


there had been dogs with Fury in the 
carriage which drove him to the pound. 
(Now that it was safely over, Fury 
was proud of his adventures at the 
pound; not every dog could brag about 
having been there and got away again 
twice!) 

The very big string of carriages 
started off with a whistle and a roar 
that made Fury’s heart stop beating, 
and with a jerk which threw him down 
and made his heart heat very fast, as 
if to catch up for the beats it had 
missed. He didn’t like it, and he 
climbed up in Big Mistress’s lap. She 
shook her head at him, and pointed to 
some white hairs which he’d rubbed off 
on her dress, and pretended to scold 
him; but her eyes were kind, and her 
voice was gentle, and she petted him 
all the while, so he knew it was all 
right. 

He stayed there for awhile, to enjoy 
the liberty he was taking; and then he 
stepped on the seat and stood up on 
his hind legs to look out of the window. 
It wasn’t easy to do, because the car- 


140 


BUZ AND FUKY 


riage was shaking very hard; he slipped 
and fell several times; and when he did 
at last get up, he found it hadn’t been 
worth all this trouble. The glass was 
dirty and smeary, and everything out¬ 
side was running by so fast that he 
couldn’t look at it for the blurs. He 
tumbled down again, and didn’t try to 
get up. He jumped to the floor, and 
went to sleep on Big Mistress’s feet. 

It was the longest and stupidest drive 
he’d ever taken. He couldn’t even 
sleep in peace. Sometimes it was Big 
Mistress’s fault for moving her feet; 
sometimes it was the big carriage’s 
fault for stopping; sometimes it was 
the big carriage’s fault for starting off 
again; and sometimes it was Fury’s 
own fault for being too bored to stay 
curled up as he was. But it came to 
an end as unpleasant things must and 
as pleasant things will; and they got 
out of the strange big carriage, and 
got into an ordinary carriage and drove 
off. 

Fury was wide awake now. They 
were passing streets without houses, 


Buz and Fury 


141 


and what houses they saw were all 
covered with green and looked rather 
like trees or bushes. But there were 
many trees and bushes without count¬ 
ing the houses; and vast stretches of 
grass; and breezes that blew from all 
directions at once; and more loose dogs 
and cats than Fury would have ex¬ 
pected to find in the entire world. It 
was very new and astonishing, and per¬ 
haps a little alarming, too—alarming 
not for Fury’s own sake, of course, but 
for Big Mistress’s. Being a watch-dog, 
Fury felt as if he ought to get out and 
sniff at some of these new things. But 
Big Mistress didn’t agree with him, and 
held him tight. And that was how he 
didn’t get near a most remarkable 
creature which came along all of a sud¬ 
den. 

It wasn’t anything with legs or wings 
he’d ever met before. It didn’t look 
like anything else, or smell like any¬ 
thing else, or run like anything else, 
and it gave Fury a peculiar feeling 
which he couldn’t have described at the 


142 


Buz and Fury 


time, but which he was to understand 
well enough a few days later. 

In looks, it was shaggy and four- 
legged; it had pointed ears and a long 
snout that was stubby at the end; it 
had wicked little eyes almost as bad as 
a rat’s; and it had a little screwed-up 
tail that you felt you must bite and try 
to pull off if you got the chance. 

In sound, it had an irritating noise 
which was a mix-up of sixteen different 
things, any single one of which was 
enough to get Fury excited; but when 
they all came together from such a 
creature as that, whose looks alone were 
enough to shock a self-respecting 
Australian fox-terrier out of his senses 
—why, Fury’s blood just curdled up in¬ 
side of him. And the looks and the 
sound weren’t the most dreadful things 
about the creature, either. 

In smell, it was a million times worse 
than a cat; Fury couldn’t describe it 
more clearly, because he didn’t know 
many of the different smells that went 
to make up the creature’s special smell. 
He only knew that if the reminders of 


Buz and Fury 


143 


roofs and cellars and cupboards and 
mice and rags set his teeth on edge 
when he met a stray cat, and made him 
want to bite, why, then the smells about 
this creature made him want to tear 
and chew and rage. But even this 
wasn't the worst. 

In run, it wobbled and hobbled, it 
ambled and shambled, it wiggled and 
wriggled, it hurried and skurried, it 
shuffled and scuffled,— 

With its short flimsy legs stumbling, 
And its big clumsy body tumbling, 
And its loud dreadful noise rumbling, 
And its fat heavy jowls jumbling, 

And its long stubborn nose fumbling, 
And its bad ratty eyes mumbling in 
its ugly horrid head. 

I ought to say that I never heard of 
eyes mumbling, but that was how Fury 
put it to himself. The pig's eyes 
screwed up and worked crooked with¬ 
out showing the reason for it, just as 
peopled eyes screwed up and worked 
crooked when they didn't speak the 
reason for it. But Fury couldn't guess 


144 


Buz and Fury 


it was a pig, because he’d never seen 
one before. 

With his forepaws raised up to the 
top of the dashboard so that he was 
standing almost straight, Fury quivered 
with excitement, stiffening out his tail, 
half-barking and low-whining by turns. 
He would look forward at the creature, 
then look aside at the coachman, then 
look back at Big Mistress. Both of 
them laughed, but neither understood 
him. 

The instinct in his blood was roused, 
he wanted to hunt the creature. But 
he’d learned a lesson from hunting a 
cat which wasn’t worth hunting, and 
he wanted somebody’s advice as to 
what he ought to do now. That was 
why Fury turned to Big Mistress and 
to the coachman. But they would only 
laugh, and the pig was lost in the dust 
raised by the wheels. 

They drove for a long while, and left 
all the houses behind them, finding in¬ 
stead wilder trees and thicker bushes 
than Fury had ever met; and at last 
they left one side of the road behind 


Buz and Fury 


145 


them, for Fury could look far down 
where it ought to he, and see the tops 
of trees on the level of the road where 
the roots ought to he. Or perhaps, in¬ 
stead of being left behind, one side of 
the road had crossed to the other side 
and stood on top of it and left a hole 
where it had been. Because though 
Fury could see far down when he 
turned to the right, he had to look up 
high when he turned to the left, where 
there was a sort of wall of trees and 
bushes and creepers. Which was a very 
improper way for a road to behave. 
The carriage itself started to play ugly 
tricks, after having such a bad example 
set to it by the road. The front wheels 
got to he ever so much higher than the 
rear wheels, and the horse seemed to 
climb almost as if the road had been a 
slanting fig-tree. Fury would have 
preferred to get out and walk; but he 
had to take care of Buz’s mother, so 
he stayed as still as he possibly could, 
for fear of making horse and carriage 
and everybody topple over if he did as 
much as wag his tail. 


146 


Buz and Fury 


Sometimes they passed people so 
wild-looking that Fury would bark. 
They had no coats, and had baggy 
trousers, and often were without shoes 
and stockings; their necks showed 
brown over the low collars of their 
shirts, and straw hats with wide brims 
came down over their browned faces. 
Fury had got so used to this savage 
sort of dress, and knew so well that he 
must protest every time a savage came 
near him, that at last he barked far off 
at a wild figure galloping towards him 
on a scrubby little pony. The figure was 
little, compared with the others Fury 
had seen, and it wasn’t so wild, though 
it had no coat and its head was hidden 
by a broad hat; and it seemed to Fury 
that— 

Fury stopped thinking and stopped 
breathing, too. The figure had waved 
a hand—it called out— 

Like a flash, Fury climbed over the 
dashboard, regardless of consequences, 
and fell in a whirl of kicking hoofs and 
flying dust and spinning wheels. He 
got free from it somehow, and rushed 


Buz and Fury 


147 


up the road. Fully twenty feet before 
meeting the galloping figure, he took a 
great leap. At that, the pony shied, 
and— 

And Buz rolled over with Fury in the 
tall soft grass that grew along the 
roadside. 


CHAPTER XII 
Buz’s Kingdom 

It was a new world that Bnz now 
showed to Fury. Buz knew all about it 
already. Fury wasn’t sure if Buz had 
been there ever since leaving home, or 
else if he’d invented it especially to 
play in. Only one thing was certain: 
if it had been made for them, it couldn’t 
have been better. 

First, there was the house itself. It 
was a strange house, with strange little 
rooms, and strange turning stairs, and 
strange doors that creaked, and strange 
windows reaching nearly from floor to 
ceiling and yet having verandahs out¬ 
side. It would have been a wonderful 
house for playing hide-and-seek; they 
couldn’t do that, because they weren’t 
the only people who lived there. But 
just by accident, you know, they would 
come to the wrong landing, or go up 
the wrong stair, or stray into the wrong 
room, and so lose each other and have 


150 


Buz and Fury 


to call out,—and then they would get 
sharply spoken to by somebody who 
had the right to be there while they 
hadn’t. Buz ought to have known all 
the ins and outs, and he probably did; 
but then Fury didn’t, and of course 
Buz would go to his rescue. 

Out of doors, they had what Fury 
thought the nicest garden he’d ever 
seen. The flowers weren’t so pretty as 
those at home, and the trees weren’t 
so tall, but there were more of both; 
and the lawns were broader, and the 
grass was higher, and the streets 
stretched farther than any Fury had 
found in all his great travels across 
town on his way to the pound. 

That was all Fury understood about 
it. But Buz knew this was the real 
country, with fields and crops and 
waste stretches and wild flowers on one 
side, and on the other side a forest 
where you could get lost and never get 
out again if you wandered too far from 
the paths. It was the paths that Fury 
called streets, because he’d never been 
in the country. 


Buz and Fury 


151 


Buz had marked out a part of the 
forest and had made in it a new land 
with mountains and rivers and towns 
and roads and fortifications. Grown 
people might not have seen all this; 
but grown people are often too busy to 
see things. Fury, too, sometimes 
skipped gaily across an impassable 
river, or ran through the very middle 
of the King’s gorgeous marble palace 
which stood on the high Hill of the 
West, or travelled in a minute and a 
half over a mountain range which it 
took the hardiest frontiersman three 
months to cross. But that wasn’t lack 
of imagination: it was only forgetful¬ 
ness. Anybody, no matter how clever 
he is, forgets sometimes. Buz knew a 
boy who was first in his class, and yet 
forgot a brick wall and walked right 
into it and smashed his front teeth, one 
night he was taking some letters to the 
post office for his father. The wall was 
there afterwards just the same, and 
the boy stayed first in his class, though 
he’d lost his teeth—and perhaps the 
letters. Everything was perfectly real, 


152 


Buz and Fury 


and there was trouble only because the 
boy forgot. 

But there was one part of Buz’s king¬ 
dom which anybody could see, and 
which many people did see, although 
Buz never went there except at hours 
when he could be alone with Fury. 

It was a place in the forest where 
the trees were thin, and where huge 
rocks of different shapes lay scattered 
about, as if the Titans had dropped 
them after trying to scale the sky. 
According to the mood Buz was in, or 
to the weather that day, this City of 
Rocks would mean various things and 
would be filled with various people, 
whose chief he always fancied himself 
to be. 

Sometimes, most often, indeed, it was 
the fortress which defended the King’s 
capital. A Roman fortress, because 
Buz was studying Roman history. It 
was filled with legionaries wearing 
tunics and sandals, having short, 
stumpy swords at their sides, and 
shields and javelins in their hands. 
There were five prominent points on 


Buz and Fury 


153 


which they planted their catapults to 
keep the enemy at bay; and there was 
a sixth point, terribly exposed because 
a broad road led up to it, and the 
enemy could move forward in safety by 
making a turtle of their square shields 
held close together above their heads. 
When an attack was being prepared, 
Buz always chose this dangerous post, 
and piled up stones to throw them 
down with Fury’s help. 

Some of the rocks had huge holes in 
them, and others shelved out from the 
earth in which they were firmly planted. 
On rainy days, these caves became rob¬ 
bers’ dens, and Buz was the captain of 
the most recklessly daring men who 
ever lived. Buz himself never did any 
stealing, and he wouldn’t share in the 
spoils, either. His duty was to lead 
the men to battle, and take care of the 
wounded afterwards, and give them ad¬ 
vice for next time. 

He felt badly about their having to 
steal. He liked the fire and dash of 
the robbers, but he didn’t like robbing. 
So he not only wouldn’t have anything 


154 


Buz and Fury 


to do with that, but often he would 
fancy himself lecturing his best robber^ 
soldiers about the law of Mine and 
Thine, and trying to reform them. 
These lectures were always followed 
by a fresh plundering expedition in 
which he was, as usual, only a fighter. 

But one day, he thought a bold rob¬ 
ber, who had rebelled once or twice 
already, and who wanted to become 
chief and so was Buz’s mortal enemy, 
answered him back: “It doesn’t mat¬ 
ter whether you do or don’t do it your¬ 
self. Just the fact that you stay our 
chief makes you the biggest robber of 
the lot.” This worried Buz, because 
he couldn’t find any quick answer; he 
played at something else for the rest 
of that day, and only when he was 
going to bed did he think of what he 
might have said. So he arranged to 
be able to say it the day after. 

He played robber chieftain again, and 
fancied he lectured the same man 
again, and the man said the same thing 
again; and then the change came, be¬ 
cause Buz was ready for him, and flung 


Buz and Fury 


155 


back: i 1 There ’s the difference that you 
live by stealing, and I don’t.” It ought 
to have ended there, as Buz had 
planned it all out. But to Buz’s great 
surprise, he fancied the man met his 
final word with this more final one: 
“Oh, you don’t, eh! Well, what do 
you live by, then!!!” What, indeed! 
Buz was staggered. Could he say, “By 
my father and mother!” That was no 
answer for a robber chieftain to make. 

He didn’t play at robbers any more 
for a week; and when he went back to 
his caves, it was to convert the mem¬ 
bers of his band into Spanish adven¬ 
turers going on colonial expeditions. 
Instead of taking gay lords and ladies 
prisoners, they captured savages; and 
instead of bringing back rings and 
purses and watches and shoe-buckles, 
they brought back gold and ivory and 
precious stones. 

When the weather, no longer driving 
him under the rocks, would draw him 
out because the sky was as broad and 
clear as a great smooth sea turned up¬ 
side down over his head, Buz would 


156 


BUZ AND FuBY 


climb to the top of his very highest 
rocks. Then it would seem to him 
that he stood in the Roman Forum, and 
that the Eternal City stretched out 
around him with its historic buildings 
—(he didn’t remember all the names, 
but he knew how they looked in pic¬ 
tures)—and the Roman Senate and 
People thronged about him, listening 
eagerly for the words on which depend¬ 
ed the safety of the State. There were 
rebellions, there were wars; Emperors 
died, Consuls had to be removed, Sen¬ 
ates changed; cyclones blew over, vol¬ 
canoes blew up; but whatever went 
wrong, Buz would always restore calm 
and repair the damages. If ancient 
Rome could only have had him, how 
different its fate would have been! Buz 
himself couldn’t help thinking of that, 
sometimes. Yet it didn’t matter very 
much, because his own Rome of the 
Rocks was far more real than all those 
musty old stories in books. And the 
words he shouted out to the rocks, and 
to the grasses, and to the trees, and to 
the birds, and to the air and sun and 


Buz and Fury 


157 


sky, were so stirring that he would feel 
ready to go and attack anything or 
anybody all by himself, and build up a 
new city himself before going to cap¬ 
ture and destroy it if duty so com¬ 
manded him. 

Fury would leap and bark frantically 
when Buz played this particular game, 
and would come charging up on the 
Forum, and miss his footing on the 
steep slippery rock and go tumbling 
down again, and would keep jumping 
and scratching and falling and crying 
until Buz helped him up to the top or 
else came down too and played at some¬ 
thing else. 

Very often, Fury would leave Buz in 
the City of Rocks and run away to 
attend to affairs of his own. There 
were strange creatures in these woods, 
which he chased through the brush and 
dead leaves, or else he dug down deep 
holes looking for them. He didn’t know 
what these creatures were, but he knew 
they were made to be hunted. His in¬ 
stinct told him that, and didn’t leave 
any room for doubts, as with pigs. 


158 


Buz and Fury 


There was a pen full of pigs in a field 
across which he sometimes passed with 
Buz. He would fawn and whine and 
jump and snort and ask his master for 
advice, then; but since the pigs weren’t 
running about, Buz didn’t understand 
what Fury was asking. So Fury was 
left to think about pigs, and dream 
about pigs, and worry about pigs, hav¬ 
ing each time exactly the same feelings 
as when he had first met one—only 
those feelings were getting stronger 
and stronger. 


CHAPTER XIII 
Miss Penelope Parateyer 

The other people in the house didn’t 
trouble very much about Buz and Fury, 
except for one person. Or perhaps two 
persons: because besides Miss Penelope 
Parateyer, there was her bull-dog, 
Barker. 

The bull-dog was old, and lame, and 
stiff, and lazy, and didn’t seem to 
notice anybody so long as his dinner 
wasn’t interfered with and he was left 
the best place on the dining-room car¬ 
pet where the sun shone through the 1 
window. Fury who was used to being 
the only dog in his house didn’t ap¬ 
prove of this, and tried to tell Barker 
so. Then he discovered that Barker 
was stupid and heavy and lumpy only 
when left quite alone, and had another 
side to his character which was most 
comfortable when it was asleep. And 
Fury told himself that it wouldn’t be 
polite to interfere any more with a 


160 


Buz and Fury 


stranger—particularly a stranger so 
much older and bigger and crosser and 
rougher than himself. By a mere co¬ 
incidence, the bull-dog stopped bother¬ 
ing Fury as soon as Fury stopped both¬ 
ering the bull-dog. 

Miss Penelope Parateyer was worse 
than her Barker. She couldn’t leave 
Buz in peace or Fury at rest. She 
didn’t like other people’s dogs, she 
said, when she had such a fine one of 
her own; and she didn’t like other 
people’s boys, she said, when she was 
so thankful she didn’t have one of her 
own. 

And yet, though Miss Penelope Para¬ 
teyer didn’t like Buz, she was forever 
interfering with him on one excuse or 
another. 

She said he made too much noise, 

And ate more than was good for him, 

And played more than was reason¬ 
able, 

And was too hard on his stockings, 

And dragged his feet when going 
upstairs, 

And often forgot his handkerchief, 


Buz and Fury 


161 


And sometimes didn’t wash his 
hands, 

And didn’t throw his shoulders very 
far hack, 

And occasionally turned his toes in, 

And broke his nails so they weren’t 
long enough, 

And cut his hair most astonishingly 
short, 

And talked and laughed and sang too 
much, 

And had too many answers ready for 
his own questions, 

And didn’t dress as warmly as he 
should, 

And didn’t always change his collar 
for dinner, 

And had no business sitting up for 
dinner anyhow, at his age, 

And- 

And- 

Well, I’ll leave you to guess the rest. 

Buz couldn’t argue with Miss Pene¬ 
lope Parateyer about matters like 
those; so except when they were at 
table, he would run away as soon as she 
had finished her sentence; and when 




162 


Buz and Fury 


they were at table, his mother could be 
trusted to change the subject. 

Didn’t Mother have anything to say 
about it to Miss Penelope Parateyer? 
I can’t tell you, because I know only 
what happened when Buz and Fury 
were present. But I should be sur¬ 
prised if, when they were left alone, 
Buz’s mother didn’t remark to Miss 
Penelope Parateyer that she could take 
care of her own son. I’m afraid that 
Buz’s mother had often had to tell him 
some of those things herself; but then, 
she was his mother, and had the right 
to tell him, and knew how to tell him. 
And besides, Buz’s mother didn’t wear 
a greeney-greyey dress with a scoop at 
the bottom that dragged on the floor 
picking up the dust; and she didn’t 
wear a thing like a shawl tied round 
her hips and a thing like a duster 
dropped over her shoulders; and she 
didn’t wear cork-screw curls all round 
her forehead that hobbled when she 
talked, and hobbled more and more as 
she grew excited. But if Buz’s mother 


Buz and Fury 


163 


didn’t do all this, Pm sorry to say that 
Miss Penelope Parateyer did. 

As for Fury, the one thing that Miss 
Penelope Parateyer had to say to him 
was just— 

“Sniff!” 

She said it with a little scornful 
snort, ’way up in her nose, every time 
he came near. And that one word, 
which wasn’t a word, meant more, said 
the way she said it, than the assort¬ 
ment of sentences she shot out against 
Buz, and Buz minded it more, too. 
As soon as Miss Penelope Parateyer 
noticed this, she paid less attention to 
Buz’s clothes and hair and talk and 
dinner, and kept saying sniff! sniff!! so 
often at Fury that she sounded as if 
she had a had cold in her head and 
needed not one handkerchief, but at 
least twenty. 

The worst part of it was, that she 
would say her sniff most disagreeably 
when Fury least deserved it: that is, 
when Buz considered Fury had been 
particularly clever. 

For instance, Fury would always eat 


164 


Buz and Fury 


anything he saw Bnz eat. No matter 
if he’d never tasted it before, and no 
matter if he’d tasted it and didn’t like 
it; if Bnz ate some and took a piece 
from his plate and held it out, Fury 
would bravely eat it. 

One day, Buz was talking about this 
at table. Everybody knew it was so, 
because Fury had done it again and 
again. But as soon as Buz said it, Miss 
Penelope Parateyer said “Sniff!” It 
just so happened that Buz was eating 
ice-cream; he took some on his spoon, 
and gave it to Fury. Fury smelt it, 
whined when it brushed the tip of his 
nose, touched it with his tongue, cried 
from pain because it was so cold—but 
ate it. 

“Now, what do you think?” said Buz 
triumphantly. 

“Sniff!” said Miss Penelope Para¬ 
teyer to Fury; after which she turned 
against Buz: “You call that clever? I 
call it cruel!” 

Buz hung his head. It certainly had 
hurt Fury. But as if Fury wouldn’t 
have been glad to do worse than that, 


Buz and Fury 165 

to prove Buz right against Miss Pene¬ 
lope Parateyer! 

“I said he’d eat anything I ate; and 
you saw him do it,” Buz returned. “It 
may be cruel of me, but it was clever 
of him !” 

“Clever?” cried out Miss Penelope 
Parateyer, so angry at Buz that she 
actually forgot to sniff at Fury. “You 
call him clever, when he’s too stupid to 
know how to beg!” 

Now, that was a sore point. Miss 
Penelope Parateyer had raised it be¬ 
fore. Buz had never wanted to teach 
Fury to beg or do the usual tricks that 
almost any dog can do when people 
take the trouble to drill him. That sort 
of trick was too much like pulling the 
string of a jumping-jack. The dog 
didn’t deserve any more credit than the 
jack, where it was a man who said the 
word or pulled the string and it all 
went as by clock-work. A jumping-jack 
dog could be made to beg, or stand, or 
lie down; but he couldn’t understand 
all that his master meant, as Fury did. 
Fury seemed to know when he was to 


166 


Buz and Fury 


come or to go, or to lie down or to 
spring up, even before Buz spoke. 
Fury could learn the laws governing a 
City of Refuge, he could keep a broom 
hidden so as to play with it alone in 
the moonlight, he could climb a fig-tree 
first and a fence afterwards. And all 
because he understood, and wanted to 
do it, and knew how to do it. Why, 
Fury no more deserved to be treated 
like a jumping-jack than Buz himself 
did. 

That was how Buz felt about teach¬ 
ing dogs to beg. But Miss Penelope 
Parateyer felt differently—perhaps be¬ 
cause it was the only thing her dog had 
been able to learn to do. Old and fat 
and wheezy as he had grown to be, he 
would sit up on his lumpy hind legs 
until he looked like a monstrosity be¬ 
tween a porpoise and a lobster, while 
he waited for a piece of sugar to be 
given to him. 

So Buz answered Miss Penelope 
Parateyer: 

“Fury never learned to beg, because 


Buz and Fury 


167 


I never gave him a chance. I don’t 
think it's—respectable, to beg!” 

“Buz!” said mother. 

“Sniff!” said Miss Penelope Para- 
teyer. 

It was Fury’s turn to speak. But 
just when he was going to—(perhaps) 
—a pig squealed very, very far away. 
Fury sprang up and went to the door. 

(Buz noticed that Barker, who had 
learned how to beg for sugar, didn’t 
move or seem to understand when 
something real happened.) 

The big wooden door was open and 
fastened hack; but there was a wire 
door, closing flat against the jamb, 
which kept out the flies. Fury walked 
up to it, and without an instant’s hesi¬ 
tation, pushed it with his nose and 
slipped out. After a minute or two, he 
came back. The door had swung to its 
first position with a click of its springs. 
Fury didn’t hesitate any more than be¬ 
fore. But do you think he pushed 
again with his nose? Not one bit of it! 
He scratched at the edge, prised the 


168 


BUZ AND FUKY 


door open with his claws, got his nose 
through, and then came in. 

The very first day he had spent there 
with Buz, Fury had studied that door. 
He was inside, and scratched at it, and 
felt it open out, and so put his nose in 
the crack and pushed through. When 
he was ready to come back, he tried 
pushing with his nose from the outside, 
and found it no longer worked. So he 
tried scratching, and succeeded. He 
made the experiment several times, 
that day, and came and went as he 
pleased. It was a clever thing for a 
little dog to do. But what was cleverer 
was that after the first day, he never 
made a mistake, never hesitated about 
what he was to do. He knew he must 
push to leave the house, and scratch 
and pull to come in. 

Now, Buz was proud of this, and he 
thought Fury couldn’t have chosen a 
better time for showing oil. 

“Could your dog do that?” asked 
Buz. 

“Yours couldn’t do it again,” an¬ 
swered Miss Penelope Parateyer. 


Buz and Fury 


169 


“But he does it a lot of times each 
day!” cried Buz. “He never makes a 
mistake. You just watch him!” 

“Sniff!” said Miss Penelope Para- 
teyer. 

“But he does!” said Buz, so vexed 
that he was turning red and white by 
turns. “He does, because he’s thought 
it all out!” 

“Oh, he has, has he?” said Miss 
Penelope Parateyer as she left the 
table. “Well, if he’s been able to 
think that out, then he ought to be able 
to think this out too.” 

She took a lump of sugar, put it on 
the floor, turned a tumbler over on it, 
and pointed to it. 

“If you push at the bottom, the glass 
slips along the floor and you can’t get 
the sugar out; if you push at the top, 
the glass falls over and you get the 
sugar,” explained Miss Penelope Para¬ 
teyer. “Teach your dog to know the 
difference, since he’s so clever. But I 
can tell you no dog has ever learned to 
do it.” 

With that, Miss Penelope Parateyer 


170 


Buz and Fury 


went towards the door, and Barker 
wheezed after her. 

Fury, quite by accident, let us hope, 
got in her way, and, dodging her, 
bumped against Barker. 

“Sniff!” said Miss Penelope Para- 
teyer. 

But since she went out as she said 
it, Buz minded it less than any sniff 
she’d ever snuffed. 

Buz started work with a will and 
without a doubt. But it wasn’t easy. 
Fury pushed and nosed at the bottom 
of the glass where he could see the 
sugar, and whined appeals to Buz be¬ 
cause he couldn’t get it, but he didn’t 
seem to make anything else out of it 
all. Buz would push the glass along 
the floor, from the bottom; and then he 
would turn it over by tapping it at the 
top. At this, Fury would make for 
the sugar; but Buz would hold him 
back, telling him he must deserve it. 
Then Buz would push at the bottom 
with Fury’s paw, and afterwards hit 
the top with the paw. But Fury would 
object to being handled that way, and 


Buz and Fury 


171 


would jump as if frightened when the 
glass fell with a clang; and so it would 
all have to be started over again. 

It was hard work, and not very ex¬ 
citing; but Buz was patient and per¬ 
sistent, since Fury’s reputation was at 
stake. Sometimes a light would come 
in Fury’s eyes as if he understood. But 
when Buz left him alone, Fury would 
push whining at the bottom where he 
could see the sugar, and finally would 
lie down with a sigh before it, resting 
his nose on his crossed front paws. 

At the end of half an hour, Miss 
Penelope Parateyer came hack. She 
had a nasty spiteful smile, and all her 
little curls were hobbling round her 
forehead—or all except one, which had 
dropped out with the hairpin that held 
it, and was hobbling instead on the 
lace duster over her shoulders. She 
was just going to say something—(I 
wonder if it was sniff?)—when Fury 
got up, walked to the glass, looked at 
it, backed away, came nearer again, 
and— 

Yes, it’s perfectly true. He hit the 


172 


BUZ AND FUKY 


glass at the top with his paw, knocked 
it over, and munched the sugar, just as 
coolly as if he were used to doing that 
every day after dinner! 

Miss Penelope Parateyer opened her 
month wide and closed it with a snap 
which choked the sniff in her nose. 

*‘Pure accident!” she said. “He 
doesn’t understand!” she said. 

“Why did he do it, then?” Buz 
asked hotly. 

“I tell you it’s accident!” said Miss 
Penelope Parateyer. “If it wasn’t, he 
can do it over again!” 

But Buz wasn’t a fool. 

“No he shan’t, because I won’t let 
him!” he said. 

“ SNIFFHI” said Miss Penelope 
Parateyer. 


CHAPTER XIV 
A “ Quiet’ ’ Day 

“We’ll have a quiet day, to-day, 
Fury,” said Buz. “We’ll go fishing.’’ 

They deserved a little quiet, having 
had a very strenuous time the day be¬ 
fore. They had scaled a young moun¬ 
tain which grew over to the north of 
the forest. It was rocks and brambles 
and prickles all the way; and there 
wasn’t any path; and they’d lost and 
found themselves and each other over 
and over again, and so had walked on 
(or run, in Fury’s case) ever so much 
farther than was necessary; and 
they’d come home much later than was 
right and proper (as Miss Penelope 
Parateyer observed); and they’d slept 
so late in the morning that they’d very 
nearly missed breakfast. Yes, it was 
only fair that they should have a quiet 
day to-day, as Buz expressed it. But 
even in the best-regulated boy-and-dog 


174 


Buz and Fury 


families, things don’t always turn out 
just as they are wanted to. 

There was a little stream which came 
down from the mountain and flowed 
partly through the forest and partly 
through the fields. Small trout lived 
in it, and loved to stop and play in 
broad deep pools under nice cool glades, 
where a boy could sit comfortably 
among the trees and fish to his heart’s 
content. They were very pretty play¬ 
ing about in the pools, those little fish; 
but they would be very good for dinner. 

Buz had fished before, and knew 
what to do. He got his rod and line 
and hooks and bait and basket ready, 
and presently started off, with Fury 
tripping after him on three legs. 

They reached the woods without any 
excitement of any sort. This was just 
as they wanted it. But then a first 
thing happened, which hadn’t been in¬ 
cluded in their programme for a quiet 
day. 

The path seemed quite clear before 
them, although the brown and red and 
yellow leaves of autumn were already 


Buz and Fury 


175 


beginning to fall, weaving a beautiful 
carpet. Buz, walking steadily on, had 
raised his foot and was about to bring 
it down, when he started, and threw 
himself back, so that his foot fell short. 
As he did it, he whispered, “ Snake!” 

A thing, lying across the path in the 
leaves, and which had looked like a 
stick, had wriggled ever so slightly. 

Now, Fury had heard of such 
creatures before. He didn’t remember 
where, nor what it all meant. But the 
hissing sound of the word made him 
uneasy, and the smell of the thing made 
him bristle. He stiffened out his legs 
and tail, put down his head, thrust out 
his nose, and uttered a low growl. 

The thing in the leaves wriggled once 
or twice, and then slipped as if it had 
been water, instead of skin and flesh 
and bone—slipped like a tiny stream 
following the curves of its own bed. 
Fury expected it to turn and attack. 
If Fury had moved, perhaps it’s what 
the snake would have done. But Fury 
stayed quite still, expecting something 
to happen; and Buz stayed quite still, 


176 


BUZ AND FUEY 


knowing that was the only way to keep 
something from happening. The con¬ 
sequence was, that the snake glided 
away to safety, leaving Buz and Fury 
safe—Buz feeling relieved and Fury 
feeling foolish. 

Fury remembered where he’d heard 
about snakes. The dogs in the street, 
at home, had spoken about them and 
said they were worse than rats. Fury 
told himself that since he knew how to 
catch rats, he ought to have tried the 
snake. Buz seemed philosophical about 
what had happened, but Fury wasn’t. 
Meanwhile, the snake had disappeared. 
Fury leaped into the bushes after it. 

Buz called, whistled, ordered, 
screamed. Fury was a very obedient 
dog, at home; but a hunting dog, with 
his hunting instincts roused, who has 
never been trained to hunt properly, 
can’t stop to listen to anything. Fury 
was off, and all Buz could do was to 
follow. 

If the snake had tried to attack, Buz 
would have defended himself as well as 
he could; but he knew that was a man’s 


Buz and Fury 


177 


work rather than a boy’s, and that the 
wise thing for a boy to do was to let a 
snake slip away without asking ques¬ 
tions. He knew, also, that some snakes, 
far from being harmful, are very use¬ 
ful, because they have no poison and 
don’t bite people, but they strangle the 
dangerous snakes that do kill people. 
He had been saying all this to himself 
while letting the snake go. But now 
that Fury was in for a fight, Buz was 
let in for it too, so he dropped his fish¬ 
ing things, and caught up a stout piece 
of broken branch, and ran off to rescue 
Fury, whose short barks he could hear 
in the distance. 

It was more of a chase than either 
Fury or Buz had bargained for. You 
see, the snake’s track lay under the 
bushes, while the hunters’ track lay 
round or through or over them. So the 
snake had the advantage in speed and 
in distance. Then, suddenly, Fury 
spied the snake’s tail sticking out from 
under some bushes, and he bit it. 

The snake whirled like a whip-lash 
that’s being cracked. But luckily it was 


178 


Buz and Fury 


in the middle of the bush, so that its 
head fell foul. Buz struck out with his 
stick, missed the first blow, got in a 
second, and finished off the snake with 
the third. He drew it carefully out 
from the bush. Then he grinned. 

It was barely half the length of the 
one they had met in the path. 

They had chased one snake, and 
caught another! But Fury didn’t sus¬ 
pect anything. All snakes looked alike 
to him! And Buz was careful not to 
tell him. Why, Fury would have been 
capable of darting off again after the 
real one. This was entirely the wrong 
way to begin a quiet day of fishing. 

They got back to the path, found 
their tackle not more than half a mile 
from the spot where Buz was sure he 
had left it, and they went on to the 
little stream. Buz chose a nice, cool, 
deep, shaded pool, and threw in his 
baited hook. He could see the fish 
flirting about in the clear water. But 
alas! Fury saw them too, and took 
them for a new kind of wriggly snake, 
and splashed in with a loud yelp to 


Buz and Fury 


179 


catch them,—and that was the end of 
fishing for a while. 

Buz found another good place, and 
settled down, ordering quiet. Fury 
settled down too, doing as he was told. 
He generally did as he was told. Only, 
after doing it, he wasn’t obliged to keep 
it up for ever, was he? He didn’t think 
so, at all events. So two minutes later 
he jumped up again, though he was 
considerate enough to run away and 
leave Buz in peace. 

Considerate? Fury didn’t say so, it 
was Buz who thought it. The plain 
truth was, that Fury had spied the tail 
of a rabbit, and was making after it as 
fast as he could. Looking for a new 
spot, Buz had worked back near the 
edge of the wood. The rabbit was 
heading for the field beyond. It would 
be Fury’s first chance to use his speed 
and run down a rabbit in the open. 
The cowardly things had always kept 
in the cover of the bushes. Here at last 
was his chance! 

They reached the open. The rabbit 
went leaping, leaping over the uneven 


180 


Buz and Fury 


ground. Fury ran for a few yards, to 
get the feel of the ground and then let 
himself out. He was an Australian fox- 
terrier on his first grand chase—the 
kind of chase for which his instinct 
called; no simple running, hut the 
great, magnificent leaps for which his 
breed is famous. It would have been a 
wonderful sight, for anybody who had 
been watching. But the only people 
there were the rabbit running to save 
his life, and Fliry running to prove his 
blood. 

The rabbit didn’t stand a chance. 
Fury was up with him in a few seconds. 
One more leap—no, half a leap, Fury 
judged quickly—and it would be over. 

With a sure aim, Fury leaped. And 
he landed—alone. 

What had become of the rabbit? 
Down a hole ? Impossible! Fury stopped 
as short as he could, and wheeled. 

The rabbit had doubled as Fury 
leaped, and was already far away to 
the left. 

Fury started after. Again he caught 


Buz and Fury 


181 


up rapidly. Again the rabbit doubled, 
and was saved. 

Fury was growing hot and angry. 

44 I saw bow be did it, that time,” 
Fury thought. 44 Next time, I’ll get 
him! ’ ’ 

But the rabbit bad a splendid start, 
and was beaded for the woods. The 
rabbit knew now that this was bis only 
chance. If he could get there first, Fury 
would get tangled in the bushes and 
the wonderful leaps would end. 

Fury understood. He leaped on more 
swiftly, more splendidly than ever. He 
would catch the rabbit before reaching 
the first bushes. He must do it—and if 
the rabbit doubled again, it would be 
back towards the field. Hurrah! Fury 
was so excited that a little half- 
smothered squeal escaped him. 

This seemed to have a peculiar effect 
on the rabbit. He swerved to the right, 
as if he’d forgotten that safety lay 
straight ahead, towards the woods. 
Fury, remembering only that the rabbit 
was practically his, swerved too, and 
was on him. 


182 


Buz and Fury 


The rabbit doubled. Fury was pre¬ 
pared for that. But—oh! The rabbit 
had changed his tactics and swerved 
before, so as to be able to double into 
the woods now. 

And he was gone, having played on 
Fury the neatest trick which ever a 
silly-looking little bunny-rabbit played 
on a wise-looking Australian fox-terrier. 

Fury was so furious that he could 
have cried. It was hopeless, now. But 
doggedly he plunged into the bushes, 
trampling and squealing and making 
enough noise to frighten away all the 
rabbits in the forest. 

He was winded and tired and dis¬ 
gusted, and was giving it up and won¬ 
dering what he could do now to prove 
he was worth something in spite of it 
all, when some extraordinary shouts 
reached him in the distance—or not 
such a distance as he might have ex¬ 
pected. 


CHAPTER XV 
The Pig Hunt 

“Hi! Here! Dog, you! Wha’s yo’ 
name? Sick ’em! Catch ’em! Eat 
’em! Oh, sick ’em, pup!” 

It wasn’t Buz calling, and there was 
no name mentioned; but the tone was 
shrill and the voice excited, and Fury 
pricked up his ears, ready for any 
work that might come his way. 

“Oh, you good-fo’-nothin’! Git a 
hump on yo ’! Oh, you pup! Frillum — 
Furers —sick ’em!” 

Frillum? Furers? Why, that mud¬ 
headed farm-boy must mean Fury! A 
dog who had nipped a snake’s tail was 
equal to any emergency, and a dog who 
had missed a rabbit had a score to 
settle with somebody. So Fury started 
across the field towards the house, 
leaping his best to show he was still 
game although he might be very tired. 

The farm-boy stood near the gate of 
the kitchen garden. He wore clumsy 


184 


Buz and Fury 


boots that were too large for him and 
frowsy trousers that were too short for 
him, and his shirt had no collar to it. 
He had a strand of hay-like hair hang¬ 
ing down over his forehead, and a wisp 
of hairy hay sticking upward from his 
mouth. When he wanted to see, he 
would blow the hair out of his eye, 
and when he wanted to talk he would 
wink the hay into a corner of his 
mouth. I don’t know if Fury noticed 
all this; but I know Buz did. 

‘ 1 Oh, there yo’ comes!” the farm-boy 
cried to Fury. “Yo’ see that ’er pig? 
Well, you give ’em sech a scare as he 
won’t never come back short o’ 
Christmas! Eat ’em up, socks! Sick 
’em, pup!” 

Fury understood. A pig was in the 
kitchen garden—and he had been called 
to hunt it. 

Seventeen seconds later, after pass¬ 
ing the gate, breaking down a bean¬ 
pole, leaping a tomato-patch, tripping 
on two melons, and crossing five fur¬ 
rows of lettuce, Fury ran down the pig 


Buz and Fury 


185 


and planted his sharp white teeth in its 
big plump flank. 

Then such a clamor broke out as 
Fury had never heard before. The pig 
didn’t try to fight, it only wanted to 
squeal Fury deaf, dumb, and dizzy. 
Fury was wondering what he must do 
next to a pig which had such peculiar 
ideas of self-defence, when the unex¬ 
pected happened. Fury was jerked off 
the ground, as in Buz’s pillow game— 
the pig played the part of the pillow, 
and the farm-boy, who had run up, 
played the part of Buz. The pig 
squealed more than ever, and Fury 
closed his eyes to hold on better. Then 
Fury got kicked in the stomach so hard 
that his jaws flew open, and, turning a 
double summersault, he landed plunk in 
the middle of a large cabbage. 

He supposed the pig had kicked him; 
but that didn’t tell him why the pig 
was squealing for help louder than 
ever. But when he got his eyes well 
open and the earth steadied so he knew 
which way he wanted to look, he was 
surprised to see the farm-boy carrying 


186 


Buz and Fury 


off the pig as a prisoner. Fury jumped 
after them, and got another kick for 
his pains—his stomach pains. Then 
he guessed it was the farm-boy who had 
kicked him the first time. 

He had nothing left to do but to go 
away; only he didn’t go far. He crept 
under a gooseberry bush to puzzle out 
the meaning of it. 

To the farm-boy, it seemed simple 
enough. A pig had escaped from the 
pen, and gone to root in the kitchen 
garden, and so needed a good scaring 
that he wouldn’t forget for a long 
while. A little dog had done the busi¬ 
ness, and had to be kicked off for not 
stopping when the pig squealed 
“Nuff!” And that was the end of it. 

But Fury didn’t see it that way. He 
was a hunting dog in a new country, 
looking for things to hunt. He had 
been worrying over pigs and waiting 
to be told if they were fair game. Now 
that farm-boy told him so, and he had 
chased pig and tasted pig, and it was 
his duty to go on hunting pig for ever. 
It was simple enough—no sensible dog 


Buz and Fury 


187 


could misunderstand. All that puzzled 
Fury was to know why the farm-hoy 
had interfered and beaten him off so 
as to carry the pig away. There was 
only one explanation Fury could find: 
the farm-boy had made Fury do the 
work, and was now going to eat the 
pig himself. It wasn’t fair, but it was 
war. So Fury determined to get an¬ 
other pig for his own dinner when the 
greedy farm-hoy should be out of the 
way. 

So while the farm-boy was taking the 
pig back to the pen and saying, “That’s 
all of that,” Fury sat under the goose¬ 
berry bush saying, “Now I’m ready to 
begin! ’ ’ 

The day had worn on towards noon. 
The air was still and heavy, as if wait¬ 
ing for somebody to stir it into a 
breeze by walking about. The shadows 
were short and stumpy against the 
ground, and there was no noise except 
for the faint, lazy droning of bees. 
Fury concluded that his time had come. 

He left the kitchen garden, and 
walked carefully, pretending he was in 


188 


Buz and Fury 


no hurry. Once in the field, he looked 
about him, saw the way was clear, and 
went on at a brisk, three-legged trot. 
He reached the pen and stopped to 
listen. 

The pigs could be heard jumbling and 
tumbling and mumbling and grumbling 
about together. Fury’s hair bristled, 
and he stiffened out his head in front 
and his tail behind and his legs in four 
different directions. He could not see 
the pigs, because of the boards around 
the pen, but he had heard and smelt 
more than enough to get his blood up. 
He took a running leap, got his claws 
on the edge of the top board, found 
support for his hind paws on a lower 
board, and pulled and pushed his 
hardest. So he reached the top, and 
stopped to balance himself before fall¬ 
ing over into the pen. 

At that instant as he paused, he saw 
a scene which surprised and frightened 
him. Beneath him were more pigs than 
there had been dogs in the pack that 
had met him on the way to the pound; 
and not a pig but was bigger and fiercer 


Buz and Fury 


189 


and hungrier than himself—save for 
one little pig who was his own size, and 
was the pig he had caught in the garden 
though Fury didn’t know it. 

Fury was no coward, but he was no 
fool, either. If he dropped into that 
seething, biting mass, he would be eaten 
up before having a chance to defend 
himself. He’d been getting his balance 
so as to fall gently, and he had just 
time to fall backward instead of for¬ 
ward, coming down in the field. 

Now, you can well imagine that all 
this hadn’t happened without a good 
deal of noise to accompany it, some 
coming from Fury and much coming 
from the pigs. Fury had been growl¬ 
ing and barking and yelping, while the 
pigs had been racing over each other 
and grunting as hard as they could. 
And so the farm-boy heard from the 
stable, where he was chewing hay; and 
Miss Penelope Parateyer heard from 
the hammock where she was trying to 
sleep; and Barker heard from under 
the chair where he had crept to keep 
cool; and Buz heard from the pool near 


190 


BUZ AND FUKY 


the edge of the woods where he was 
enjoying a quiet day’s fishing. And 
the first to move was the farm-boy, 
who suspected what was wrong; and 
the second to move was Buz, who con¬ 
cluded he’d better investigate; and the 
third to move was Barker, whose fight¬ 
ing blood got roused somehow; and the 
fourth to move was Miss Penelope 
Parateyer, but she merely said ‘ ‘ Sniff! ’ ’ 
and turned over in the hammock and 
began to snore. 

While they were doing these various 
things, Fury was attending strictly to 
business, or what he considered busi¬ 
ness. He had judged it wasn’t safe to 
fall on top of the pigs, and by experi¬ 
menting he found he couldn’t get 
through the boards, and so the only 
thing left was for him to go under¬ 
neath. There was one place where the 
earth had been recently piled up after 
having been scratched out. By sniffing 
all round it, Fury knew that the pig 
had passed here and the farm boy had 
worked here. The truth was, that the 
pig had dug a hole big enough to slip 


Buz and Fury 


191 


through, and the farm-hoy had piled 
loose earth against a short plank 
stopping the hole. Fury whined ex¬ 
citedly, and started digging very fast, 
making the earth fly about in every 
direction. The hole was almost emptied, 
and the plank almost ready to tumble 
over on him. It was just then that the 
farm-boy and Barker ran up, though 
from the wrong side of the pen, so they 
couldn’t see what Fury was doing. Buz 
was farther away, having run from the 
woods, but he could see them all, and so 
he alone knew afterwards precisely 
what had happened on that tragic day, 
although he couldn’t do anything. 

The farm-boy, hearing the noise in 
the pen and believing the trouble was 
in there, didn’t stop to open the gate 
but vaulted over the boards and landed 
in the middle of the pigs. Meanwhile, 
Fury, who had already got the earth 
cleared away, had tumbled the plank 
over on himself. Inside, the pigs, terri¬ 
fied by the farm-boy, rushed against 
the walls of the pen. Outside, Fury 
thought only of getting the way clear. 


192 


Buz and Fury 


A frightened pig saw the opening made 
by Fury and bolted out, knocked Fury 
sprawling, and made a break for 
liberty. 

Fury was up and after him in a flash. 
But the pig, instead of heading for the 
field, dodged round the comer of the 
pen and started towards the bouse. 
Fury followed. The pig ran faster. 
And thus the pig bowled squarely into 
clumsy old Barker, who came hobbling 
up from the opposite direction. The 
pig didn’t mind, he just squealed and 
ran on, with Fury close upon him. 

Barker had fallen over, and now 
picked himself up, snarling viciously, 
all his bad temper at criss-crosses and 
all his rheumatic joints aching. He 
had only one idea in his mind, and that 
was to hurt somebody and be quick 
about it. He saw the pig coming for 
him again, and he remembered that 
he’d been a prize bull-dog, once. 

Buz, who was now very near, and still 
running hard, understood what was 
happening. 

The farm-boy, after vaulting the 


Buz and Fury 


193 


wall of the pen, had evidently been sur¬ 
prised not to find Fury there; and, like 
the loutish farm-hoy he was, he’d 
vaulted right over into the next pen, 
where the big boar was kept alone. Not 
finding Fury there either—if he had 
taken the trouble to look first, he would 
have spared himself all this jumping— 
he opened the door to get out. But he 
was clumsy, and the hoar was excited 
over the disturbance which had been 
going on in the next pen. As the farm- 
boy fumbled at the door, the boar burst 
past him and got out into the open. 
Fury was chasing a medium-sized pig; 
the boar now gave chase to Fury. It 
was the boar who collided with Barker, 
and after whom Barker now started 
without asking any questions. 

The boar seemed certain to catch 
Fury, who was intent on the pig ahead; 
and Fury would then stand no more 
chance than an antelope attacked from 
behind by a lion. The only hope lay in 
Barker; but—Buz asked himself de¬ 
spairingly as he tried to run even 
faster—could Barker do anything? 


194 


BUZ AND FUEY 


The boar caught up with Fury, and 
struck. Fury was just leaping, and the 
boar hadn’t counted on that; the blow 
of the tusk missed, and it had been 
aimed so hard that the boar reeled and 
stumbled. This gave Fury a slight 
advance—Fury who, intent on his own 
quarry, still wasn’t aware that he had 
become a quarry also. 

But it gave Barker an advance too. 
A miracle had taken place in the old 
fellow. Anger at being bowled into 
impudently, or recollections of what he 
had been, had made him forget his 
age and his miseries. He had roused 
suddenly and effectually, and was 
bounding after the boar in fine style. 
As the boar stumbled, Barker flew at 
him and snapped his huge iron-like jaws 
together. 

The boar, bitten on the flank, turned 
and attacked, ripping Barker’s shoulder 
cruelly. With a terrific half-howl half¬ 
growl, Barker released his hold on the 
flank and got a fresh and deadly grip 
on the boar’s throat. But too low 


Buz and Fury 


195 


down. The boar’s tusk ripped again, 
and this time in Barker’s throat. 

The farm-boy cornered the pig an 
instant later, and Buz captured Fury. 
Then they hurried to the combatants. 

The boar was dead: but Barker had 
given his own life in saving Fury. 

Buz walked slowly to the house. His 
eyes swam, his feet stumbled, there was 
a big lump in his throat. He felt he 
ought to be the one to do what had to 
be done. 

He drew near the hammock. He 
hesitated, turned back, and put Fury, 
whom he had held in his arms, into the 
house. Then he came on again, clear¬ 
ing his throat. 

Miss Penelope Parateyer woke with 
a start, and looked at him. She must 
have read tragedy in his face. She 
looked at him, but said nothing. 

“I’ve got to tell you—” Buz stopped, 
his voice had faded away. He swallowed 
hard, and made another start: “I want 
to tell you—I love Barker—and—and 
I’m sorry I was mean to him.” 

The old maid’s face softened for an 


196 


Buz and Fury 


instant, but she hardened it from habit 
before answering primly: 

“I suppose it’s never too late—” 

“Oh, but it is, it is!” Buz burst out, 
catching her hand. 

She drew back her hand, alarmed. 
She was probably going to question. 
But the farm-boy had slouched up. He 
held something—something— 

Then she understood. She neither 
moved nor cried. She lay quite still, 
pale and speechless. Buz had not re¬ 
leased her hand; his grip on it 
tightened. 

“He was saving my dog from a 
boar, ,, Buz said with a sob. 

She freed her hand, and let it fall 
beside her in the hammock. She was 
crying, now; but she didn’t try to speak 
—didn’t utter one word of reproach 
such as Buz had steeled himself to face. 

She did not move for a long time. 
When she opened her eyes, she saw Buz 
crouched down in the grass near her: 
he had been giving her all he had to 
give, his silent, forlorn sympathy. 

With an impulsive gesture, she rested 


Buz and Fury 


197 


her hand for an instant on his bowed 
head and stroked his short, smooth, 
silky hair. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. 

Buz drew himself together and an¬ 
swered earnestly:— 

“I believe Barker was the bravest 
dog in all the world!” 


CHAPTER XVI 
Fury is Missing 

They buried Barker that afternoon; 
and next day Barker’s mistress went 
away. Two days later, Fury and Buz 
and Big Mistress went too. Fury was 
trying to choke all the pigs in the 
neighborhood. The idle act of a stupid 
farm-boy had changed Fury from a 
nice little house-dog as he had been 
trained to be, to an undaunted hunting 
dog as his Australian ancestors had 
been trained to be. Buz tried to cor¬ 
rect him. Buz scolded and threatened 
and whipped; but Fury’s blood was 
telling, and he would learn no new 
lessons about pigs. 

He would stop his chase and come 
meekly back when Buz happened to see 
him and called sharply out; but he 
would give chase again when another 
pig came. A harm had been done to 
him which could not be undone: the 
only thing left was to take him to a 


200 


Buz and Fury 


land where there should be no more 
pigs. 

They got home again, in due course, 
and were happy to be there. Buz and 
Fury played at the nice games they 
knew so well; and Buz’s father and 
mother in the house, and old black 
Aunt Dimpsey and other servants in 
the kitchen, had many wonderful tales 
to tell about Fury and his good and 
bad behavior. So it came about that 
many people, who had not heard of 
Fury before, heard of him now; and 
the news spread abroad that a very 
remarkable dog lived in that house, 
and people would stop in passing to 
look into the garden as Fury and Buz 
played there. Before the end of the 
first week, however, Buz was left sad 
and lonely: Fury had gone. 

Nobody knew how or quite when. 
Fury had been there, and then he 
hadn’t. He had disappeared and left 
Buz to find an explanation, just as Buz 
had once disappeared and left Fury to 
find an explanation. The difference 
was that there were many things Buz 


Buz and Fury 


201 


could learn by asking questions, which 
Fury couldn’t learn because people 
didn’t understand his questions; but 
this difference didn’t matter now, since 
the answers Buz received didn’t bring 
him any information. And the two had 
this in common: just as Fury had be¬ 
lieved in Buz before, so Buz believed in 
Fury now. 

Buz’s father said: “I’m afraid 
Fury has got into the straying habit. 
He ran away so often while you were 
gone, that he does it naturally now. 
That’s what comes of beginning to mis¬ 
behave. ’ ’ 

Buz’s mother said: “I’m sure he’s 
gone to look for pigs!” 

Buz bowed his head and didn’t an¬ 
swer. There was only one answer, and 
he had made it from the first, and 
people wouldn’t agree with him; so he 
had got sensitive, and stopped talking, 
although he hadn’t changed his mind. 

The answer was: ‘ i Fury would never 
run away from me.” 

Which meant that Buz believed Fury 
had been stolen. Though he didn’t 


202 


Buz and Fury 


know it, that was what his father and 
mother feared, while trying to console 
him; and they were offering rewards 
to the police and to the public, and had 
engaged a detective to watch for dog- 
thieves; besides which they were send¬ 
ing twice each day to the pound. 

Six days had gone by, and Buz had 
almost stopped hoping, although he still 
trusted. Whatever had happened, 
Fury had not run away from him; but 
whatever had happened, it was very, 
very serious. 

That afternoon—of the sixth day— 
Buz sat in the swing which was his 
favorite place on the broad high-ceil- 
inged verandah at the back of the 
house. He had often sat there with 
Fury on his knees, or had swung there 
with Fury jumping after him. And he 
could see the lawn on which Fury had 
spun like a pin-wheel, forepaws down 
and hind legs thrown up; and the wall 
before which Fury had watched for 
rats; and the fig-tree which Fury had 
climbed; and the carriage-house in 


Buz and Fury 


203 


which was the City of Refuge, now for¬ 
gotten by all save Buz. 

A book lay on Buz’s knee. But he 
was thinking instead of reading. He 
was wondering what Fury might be 
doing at that moment—and hoping that 
whoever had been dishonest enough to 
steal him wouldn’t be mean enough to 
ill-treat him. 

Buz wasn’t listening for any sound, 
or paying particular attention to what 
was happening about him. Only, dif¬ 
ferent noises which reached him got 
mixed in with his thoughts of Fury, 
and launched him off in a beautiful 
day-dream: a dream that poor stolen 
Fury was at this very instant on the 
way back to him. 

Suppose Fury had escaped from his 
captor and made his way home through 
the streets. He could do that, having 
run about so much in the early summer. 
Then he would be reaching the front 
gate now, and that little whine Buz 
barely heard—so faint that it might 
come from any dog, or almost any ani¬ 
mal—would be Fury saying, “Oh, 


204 


Buz and Fury 


please let me in! I’m tired and hungry 
and thirsty, and I can’t stand much 
longer! ’ ’ 

But there wouldn’t he anybody to 
listen or go to the gate. And so poor 
Fury, after whining once more—yes, 
just like that, perhaps—would get dis¬ 
couraged and snuggle up against the 
gate, waiting sadly and patiently, shiv¬ 
ering the while because he was so 
weary and miserable! Some horrid boy 
might drive him away. Then Fury 
would run, pretending to go very far, 
but creeping back as soon as the boy 
was out of sight. 

When still no help came, Fury would 
try to jump the fence once more. There 
would be a scratching something like 
what Buz heard—a scratching and a 
slipping and a falling. Poor Fury 
would be so tired; and besides, he 
hadn’t ever been able to do it from the 
outside. Only, Buz had been outside 
before, to draw him out, and now Buz 
was inside, to draw him in:—so Fury 
might succeed. And he would fall into 
the garden with a louder slipping and 


Buz and Fury 


205 


scratching, and a big bnmp at the end. 

This would stun him for a minute or 
two. Then he would spring up, remem¬ 
bering only that he had reached home 
at last. He would come running kutter- 
plunk, knttsr-plunk, knits?-plunk — 
faster and faster,—nearer and nearer, 
—off the grass—on the driveway—a 
slip on the marble slab at the foot of 
the steps—up the steps— 

Why—Why—Buz thought he had 
been day-dreaming—could it he— 

He was too surprised to move. He 
sat there in the swing, staring— 

And Fury, with a last long leap, 
which took the whole of his strength, 
landed on Buz’s chest and lay there, 
panting with exhaustion hut wriggling 
with happiness, while Buz’s arms closed 
tightly round him. 

But as Buz hugged, Fury whined with 
pain. Was the poor dog so thin that 
his very hones hurt him? It was true 
that he looked nearly starved. But 
what was that on his neck? Buz looked 
closely. 

It was a long jagged wound stretch- 


206 


Buz and Fury 


ing across one whole side of the neck, 
where the flesh was cut through. The 
blood had dried so newly that it started 
to flow again in slow thick drops under 
Buz’s pressure. 

Buz got up, holding Fury carefully 
to take him and have the wound 
attended to. The street-bell rang 
violently, and Buz stopped, wondering 
who it could be and hoping his mother 
would not be needed. He went to the 
big central hall which divided the house 
from front to rear. 

The door stood open. An ugly-look- 
ing negro, with a policeman by his side, 
was talking to Buz’s father. 

“Uh tell yo’, boss, as de dawg done 
bite me!” the ugly-looking negro said. 
“Yo’ look a’ here! See dat? Dat 
dawg teet’, dat am, an’ wot mo’, it 
yo’ dawg teet’ an’ no mistake!” 

“You will have to prove it,” said 
Buz’s father. 

“Uh kin prove ’em all right,” said 
the negro. “An’ uh got de law on yo’. 
Uh knows muh rights, an’ uh gwine get 
’em, vo’ kin lay to dat!” 


Buz and Fury 


207 


Buz made a startled movement. His 
father turned, saw him, and motioned 
the policeman and the negro into the 
library. 

The door closed after them all, and 
Buz stayed in the hall, puzzled and 
anxious. Presently his mother came 
out. She looked as if she had some¬ 
thing to say and didn’t know how to 
say it. 

Buz spoke first: 

“Mother, Fury is wounded—there! 
It’s jagged as if cut by a rope. Can 
you put something on it right away?” 

Buz’s mother made a sympathetic re¬ 
mark, said the wound wasn’t a bad one 
and she would attend to it immediately. 

“Give Fury to me,” she added. 

“Oh, don’t take him away from me! 
Let me carry him upstairs!” Buz 
pleaded. 

“Give him to me,” his mother re¬ 
peated so firmly that Buz yielded with¬ 
out another word. She took Fury in 
her arms, and went away with him. 

Night came, and Buz had not seen 
Fury again. Some secret was being 


208 


Buz and Fury 


kept from him. He asked his mother 
what she had done with Fury; she an¬ 
swered that Fury was safe, and had 
eaten a good dinner, and his wound 
was all right. But when Buz went to 
his father, the answer was that Fury 
must not be disturbed. Buz knew all 
this was true, because his father and 
mother had never deceived him; but he 
knew there was something else, that 
was true too, and which they would not 
tell him. 

After going to bed—he had to go 
without seeing Fury—Buz kept puzzling 
over the mystery. Suddenly, he seemed 
to look into the evil eyes of the negro 
who had come to the door with the 
policeman. Thinking so much of Fury, 
Buz had forgotten the negro. But the 
negro had come to complain of being 
bitten, and pretended Fury had done it. 
There was the policeman, too. Could 
it be possible that the negro had had 
Fury arrested? 

Now that the idea had come, it 
wouldn’t go away again. Buz couldn’t 
bear this, alone in the dark. He got up 


Buz and Fury 209 

to beg bis father to tell him every¬ 
thing. 

He went on tip-toe, so as not to dis¬ 
turb his mother if she were sleeping. 
When he drew near his father’s room, 
he saw a light and heard a voice. 

This is what his father was saying: 

“No, I offered the man money, and 
he wouldn’t take it. He says that if a 
dog ever goes mad after biting you, 
then you will go mad the same day; 
and the only way to save you is to 
prevent the dog from going mad. I 
tried to prove to him that this was 
arrant nonsense, but I only made him 
angrier. Unfortunately, the law is on 
his side. I’ve demanded a trial. But 
unless the negro changes his mind be¬ 
fore to-morrow morning, I fear we can 
do nothing, and so Fury must be shot.” 


CHAPTER XVII 
The Trial 

Fury shot! 

Buz could not make a sound nor a 
movement. 

He heard his mother say: 

“But surely no law—” 

“It is the law,” Buz’s father inter¬ 
rupted. “If a dog bites you, you have 
the right to have him killed.” 

Then Buz found his voice, which rang 
out despairingly in the dark stillness of 
the hall: 

“Oh, Father, Father!” 

The door opened. His father gave 
him a stern glance as he stood there, 
ghastly white. 

“My son listening at the door!” said 
Buz’s father. 

“I—I was coming to ask you,” Buz 
faltered. “But never mind me—do 
anything to me, Father! But save 
Fury! ” 

“There will be a trial to-morrow,” 


212 


Buz and Fury 


said Buz’s father, his face softening. 
“You must hope until then.” 

“I’ll hide Fury—I’ll run away with 
him—” 

“The law is the law, Buz, and we 
must obey it,” his father answered 
solemnly. “Fury obeys you. Would 
you have me believe IVe brought up 
my son worse than you’ve brought up 
your dog?” 

Buz hung his head, and began to sob. 

“It's cruel—cruel!” was all he could 
say. 

VI shall be there to help Fury and 
do whatever can be done,” Buz’s father 
promised. 

“Oh, Father, let me go! Don’t you 
think they would let me go and hold 
Fury?” Buz burst out. 

His father hesitated. 

“If you think you can be brave—” 

Buz threw back his head. There were 
still tears in his eyes, but the sobs had 
stopped now he had found something to 
do. 

“I’ve got to be brave, for Fury’s 
sake,” he said thickly. “If my dog’s 


Buz and Fury 213 

got to die, he shall die like—like a 
man.’ * 

Next day, in Court, Buz kept repeat 
ing this to himself, to keep his courage 
from failing as he listened to the 
negro’s story: 

“Well, Jedge, it was disher’ way. 
Uh was meanderin’ on de street in de 
cool o’ de attemoon, w’en wot uh see 
but dat little white dawg come 
a-cavortin’ up. Says I to muhself, 
says I, ‘Uh’ll catch ’em an’ git a ree- 
ward fo’ ’em.’ So uh calls out to ’em, 
nice an’ gentle like, ‘Come, dawg! 
heah, dawg! good dawg!’ An’ he looks 
like he cornin’ ez meek ez rabbits, an’ 
uh all but has muh yand on ’em, w’en 
he ups an’ scrabbles he eye roun’ an’ 
roun’ in he haid, an’ show he 
teet’ ’way down he t’roat, and say 
‘Grrrrrrrrrrr—’ An’ den he done bite 
me, an’ deh’s de bite!” 

With which the negro dramatically 
held out his hand. 

The judge questioned, cross-ques¬ 
tioned; the negro told always the same 
story. Three witnesses came to con- 


214 


Buz and Fury 


firm it, and at last a doctor testified 
that Fury’s teeth had certainly done 
the damage to that hand. 

Buz, sitting by special permission 
with Fury on his knees, listened hope¬ 
lessly. Fury showed more spirit: he 
raised his head and growled viciously 
whenever the ugly-looking negro spoke. 
The negro noticed this, and made 
capital out of it. 

“An’ if yo’ ain’t believe me an’ all 
muh witunsses, Jedge, if yo’ won’ be¬ 
lieve all we colluh’d gen’ermen can say, 
den jest yo’ listen to de dawg! Watch 
de way he snarl and cock he yeye at 
me, an’ growl like he ready to eat me 
up w’en dey lef’ ’em go! Yo’ kint say 
dat dawg ain’t never see me afore, 
Jedge!” 

No one could have denied what the 
negro said there. A silence came, and 
Buz knew that the end was near. Some 
men drew their heads together and 
whispered. The death sentence against 
Fury was going to be read. Buz re¬ 
membered that he mustn’t shake Fury’s 
nerve, and he thrust his fingers into 


Buz and Fury 


215 


his ears so as not to hear. He was 
disgracing himself before all these 
people: but what matter, provided Fury 
remained a hero? 

But something must have happened. 
There was a stir in the Court room 
which Buz could see without daring to 
understand. He supposed they were 
coming to lead Fury away. 

Nobody came—only the stir in the 
Court room increased. Why, people 
were laughing, were standing up, were 
craning their necks and jostling one 
another. What could it be? 

Buz dropped his hands and raised his 
head. Then his mouth opened with 
amazement as he sat there, staring and 
listening eagerly. 

His own old black Aunt Dimpsey had 
broken into the Court and was standing 
in front of the judge, her arms akimbo, 
her bandanner twisted awry, and her 
head twirling like a windmill as she 
told a remarkable story whose begin¬ 
ning Buz had missed: 

“An* uh tell yo* de Gospel trut’, 
Jedge, w’en uh say dat low-down 


216 


Buz and Fury 


nigger done t’ief Fury an’ lock ’em up 
in de stables at Mis’ Gresham’s, w’at 
ain’t come back Pom de country yet. 
Dat low-down black cuss—‘sensin’ yo’ 
pahdon, Jedge—t’ief ’em an’ tie ’em 
up, an’ he ain’t never feed ’em; an’ 
w’en he go in yistiddy fo’ take ’em up 
de road whe’ we none of us never see 
we-uns Fury agin, Fury w’at ’d spent 
de time chawin’ de rope as cut he neck 
so bad, done fly at dat nigger an’ bite 
’em w’en he try fo’ catch ’em, an’ 
serve him right, too, and den Fury 
come home! ’ ’ 

“ ’S a lie, Jedge! ’S a lie!” bawled 
the negro. “Whe’ muh witunsses?” 

“Yo’ ain’t got none, ’ca’se ef dey 
dare show dey dirty sneakin’ lyin’ faces 
heah, uh’ll tell ’bout all de crowin’ 
roosters uh is knew dey is steal!” old 
black Aunt Dimpsey flung back at him. 
“You ain’t got no witunsses, but I is 
got fou’—two w’at seen yo’ steal de 
leetle dawg f’om out my Maussa 
yahd, an’ one w’at seen yo’ chasin’ ’em 
w’en he cut out o’ Mis’ Gresham’s 
stable, an’ de las’ one, as was de fust 


Buz and Fury 


217 


one to know ’bout it w’en yo’ brag as 
yo’ was gwine steal de fines’ dawg in 
town, w’at b’long to Marse Buz, an’ 
take ’em to de country and train ’em 
up fo’ catch stag!” 

All eyes were fixed on the ugly-look- 
ing negro, who now looked very much 
uglier than before. 

“If dat’s de way de Jedge allow a 
gen’erman to be spoke to in disher’ 
Cou’t o’ Jestice, I is gwine to jine mo’ 
’speckable company. Uh ain’t got 
nuttin’ mo’ to. say to sech low-down 
people, white an’ black.” 

He turned to go. But Buz’s father 
sprang up. 

“I demand the arrest of that man for 
stealing my son’s dog,” he said. 

At this, the man attempted to bolt. 
Old black Aunt Dimpsey was the first 
to catch him and hold him by the 
collar, shaking him like a rat, until a 
policeman could struggle through the 
crowd. The negro had cast aside all 
pretence, and was alternately reminding 
Buz’s father of a promise about money, 
and begging for freedom at any price. 


218 


Buz and Fury 


Fury was acquitted for having acted 
in self-defence when he bit the negro, 
and found himself free to go home with 
Buz and Big Master. The first thing 
they did was to hurry to Big Mistress, 
and when Buz kissed her, Fury, who 
was in Buz’s arms, kissed her too, 
which surprised her and made her cry 
out—she didn’t like to have Buz kiss 
her, Fury supposed. 

An hour later, Fury was missed. 

• “Not again!” said Buz’s father. 

“If I ever have another dog—” said 
Buz’s mother. 

“Well, if dat ain’t de beatenest 
embrolification! ” said old black Aunt 
Dimpsey. 

Buz said nothing, but went in a 
direction different from everybody 
else’s. He remembered a hunted look 
in Fury’s eyes during the trial, as if 
Fury had known that a dreadful danger 
hovered near from which there was no 
escape. 

Buz went straight to the carriage- 
house: Fury was in his City of Refuge. 


Buz and Fury 


219 


“It’s all right to come out—now/’ 
Buz said, with a catch in his voice. 

Fury smiled as if to say it was 
always all right there. But he still 
would not come out; so Buz climbed in 
and curled up beside him. 

And together in the soft hay they 
told one another, each in his own 
language yet both understanding per¬ 
fectly, that all was all right indeed. 

THE END. 





























































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